Not everyone has an iPod, and not everyone's iPod is available to them when on a plane
. When it needs charging, everyone should consider themselves lucky that there is an alternative to iPod music as part of the in flight entertainment system.
The in flight entertainment system on planes is not perfect. It offers a fairly bland set of 'radio' stations to listen to when the movies, television shows and documentaries are not interesting. On flights from Vancouver to Halifax and other flights of similar length it's necessary to have a range of options for people to listen to. The music not be perfect to everyone's taste, but it's just as good as commercial radio. And without any adverts it's perfect to listen to something that you can simply put on and float away to.
And in flight entertainment radio is starting to improve. Some airlines now allow you to stream the music that you want to hear. Airline operators like Virgin with their Virgin America service have been able get the permission to allow people to listen to the entire back catalogue of Pink Floyd's back catalogue. As more and more record labels come around to the fact that ownership of music is no longer such a huge thing and that sometimes they can make more money by allowing people on flights from Milwaukee to Boston or flights from Raleigh to Paris to listen to their artist's music. Just like how the airline industry pays for the rights to show films, this could easily become an arrangement that ends up also covering music.
Then plane radio would become so much more than radio station, and people would no longer need to waste the battery on their iPod and they could instead be introduced to new music. And guess what! When they get home they might just buy it!