i have used an iphone once in my life when i was a kid, and my only memory of it is thinking something was broken because i couldn’t open the filesystem on my PC

People would tell me on the age of illegally downloaded or someone legally bought mp3s apple was better because you can’t play your mp3s you have to buy them again off apple

Idk why people told you that but it’s never been true. iPods didn’t give a shit where the mp3 came from, only that it was loaded via iTunes.