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In that case, Apple saw the writing on the wall (just like Amazon with $9.99 books, I believe, though they are still way too high!). They also had an exploding mainstream piracy problem to deal with.
They managed to find a price-point that people would pay, providing content they wanted (one song, not whole albums), and provided convenience (for a subset of the market). Other companies were trying to do it, but it wasn't until the ipod actually exploded in popularity (and thereafter sales of music) that companies agreed. I'm sure that there was some, "and if you don't we'll remove your music from our catalog and you'll lose the $200million in profits in the future" sorta stuff. Kudos if so!
Anti-kudos for them charging to remove the drm from music already purchased. Would it have cost them $ to do so, of course - relative to their profits? Minuscule amounts (and yes, I'm making an assumption here). Could they have simply released an application, free, for users to download, or added the functionality to itunes? YEP.
I don't remember, but was Apple pushing for DRM'less stuff from day one, or did this come a while into their process; my mind (admittedly faulty at times) is saying that early statements were of the, "down the road this is where it will be" form.
Other sales organizations were promoting and trying for the same thing, but didn't have the market share to push through the drm-less business model.
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