I have a lot of friends who do literally all of their work out of their "Downloads" folder - I don't know how they survive that way, but they love music players which they can just point at a directory and say "index this and make a neat library" and know that everything lives in one place.
Personally, I'm in the camp who kept a manually-organized directory tree for music for years, and would still prefer that mode of working, but even among my technical friends I think I'm in the minority there. Presumably Apple was right that this is what most people prefer.
That was what bothered me about iTunes...I was never sure WHERE things lived. Even if I pointed it at a folder, was that my music, or just an input source for where my music actually ended up living?
was that my music, or just an input source for where my music actually ended up living?
If you have "Organize my music" checked then iTunes copies the files to its library. If you have it unchecked, then the files stay where you left them.
Personally, I'm in the camp who kept a manually-organized directory tree for music for years, and would still prefer that mode of working, but even among my technical friends I think I'm in the minority there. Presumably Apple was right that this is what most people prefer.