The first iPods were pretty crappy from a functional standpoint. There were other mp3 players which were more full-featured, and the early iPods crashed a lot.

It's their aesthetic design which sold people on them. That's what Slashdot did not understand.

I actually preferred MiniDisc through the portable music player era. I didn’t stop using my MiniDisc player until iPhone 4, as my phone storage was suddenly sufficient to carry a good portion of my library.