The NYT just notices that ITMS uses lossy compression - and argues that only Redbook CD-quality compression is what consumers really, really want.
They miss the deep lesson about standard setting the example of MP3 vs Redbook audio demonstrates: succesful standards satisfice, not optimize. Giving up quality on one dimension may actually create value for standard stakeholders - it's an idea that's counterintuitive to pretty much everyone but geeks.