Why do people buy iPods?

I’m having a really, really, really hard time understanding why people buy iPods. iPods REQUIRE you to have iTunes installed on your computer in order to manage the music on your iPod. This means that if you don’t have iTunes installed on your computer you can’t do anything with the $200—$300 player you just bought. It bothers me that people understand this, yet they still cough up their money to buy iPods. Furthermore iTunes limits you to managing your music on one computer. Can I be the only one that thinks this sucks?

On the other hand, players from Creative Zen (for example) don’t require you to install their software. You simply plug in the player to your computer and drag and drop your music. Oh yeah, and you can do it from any computer you want! So if you have an iPod and you go to your friends house who doesn’t have iTunes, you wouldn’t be able to manage your music. But if you have a Creative Zen player (for example), you can go to anyone’s house and insert or delete all the music you feel like. You would not be limited by software.

I don’t know, is there something I’m missing here about the iPods? Or is everyone basically just buying iPods because everyone else has them?