Personally, I don't have iTunes installed and don't own an iPod. Gerbick has a Zune.

But I think I read that 3/4 of "mp3 players" sold in the US are iPods. (I know, iPods aren't even really mp3 players.) So your "most others" is only a subset of those who don't buy iPods; but most people apparently do buy iPods, and use iTunes.

And iTunes really is like an operating system, which is probably why your "most people" (of which I'm one, by the way; though I have other reasons, as well) avoid it. But because it's designed how it is, you can't readily get files out of it once you've collected them that way. (At least that's my limited experience with it. I found third-party software that would help me get out music files, but I wanted to get an ebook file and I couldn't even find software -- freeware or payware -- that claimed it could do that.)

So if a non-Apple company is going to wean iPod owners away from their iPods, they're going to have to offer a way for them to get their files out of the iTunes jail in which they reside. Palm found one way, subverting iTunes to Palm's own purposes, and Gerbick and I think that's cool.