The mp3 players of 2001 were so fucked up that keeping your Walkman in use wasn’t uncommon. Not among techies maybe but regular people, many of whom didn’t even have a computer yet. How would they even fill their mp3 players? (And even the techies could sigh - rip CDs? Download mp3 from ftp sites?)
On many occasions it was still easier, even in 2001, to dub a CD to a cassette than juggle the computer gear.
The Walkman was sold until recently (if it isn’t still) and of course living in a big city you see a handful of people using a Walkman. It never died completely. There is of course the hipster resurgence of cassettes of the 2010s. Of all this I’m aware. But techie or hipster or not I was around in 2001 and the Walkman was well past mass adoption by that point in the western world. Shitty MP3 players that people loaded up with Napster and Discmans/Aiwas knockoff were what the poors and regulars did. MD and nicer hard drive players were the enthusiast options.
The iPod did not have the Walkman to contend with in a meaningful sense.
Also in the US at least, the majority of households had a PC by 2001. I came from a shit poor backwater by this sites standards. We had computers.
And by 2001, FTP sites? That was post peak of Napster (after Feb 2001). Kazaa, Emule, etc were all regulars options. You’re a few years off, which was substantial in the 95-2001 timeframe.
I may be tainted by the fact that I doggedly stuck to Linux in the time period 1995-2014. :-)
And I agree, walkman was not a major contender in 2001, I just mean it wasn't entirely gone from "normal user" perspective. But I stand by that iPod was the first solution which had as easy UX as a Walkman if you wanted your own playlist. As shitty as iTunes was and is, it was still the first really working music software anyone could use.
On many occasions it was still easier, even in 2001, to dub a CD to a cassette than juggle the computer gear.