"The sheer amount of content that apple has sold through iTunes would surely suggest that moving to another platform would be a major barrier to transferring to another service."
That will not continue to be true for long. The future of media consumption (well, at least music consumption) is from streaming services, which don't make you deal with syncing. iTunes may be user friendly, but the whole sync process is still time consuming and frustrating. Also, all music that's been sold on iTunes for over a year is DRM-free, and you can 'upgrade' your older songs for a relatively modest fee if you want to.
There's an argument that video content (which is still laden with DRM) will provide adequate lock-in, but that will probably start streaming too in the next year or two. And I think it's less of a big deal to most people if they can watch a TV show on their phone, anyway.
That will not continue to be true for long. The future of media consumption (well, at least music consumption) is from streaming services, which don't make you deal with syncing.
Fair, but remember that iTunes strength isn't their sync ability to their associated devices, it is the already negotiated agreements with content providers who have agreed to distribute their content electronically.
For people with a strong bias towards "pay as you go", it's not a sad future at all. The headache of managing bought content in terms of backups, syncing to various devices, changing formats, essentially making everyone a expert in storage management is one that could use some creative destruction.
I already got rid of my collection of music videos in favour of youtube playlists, movie collection in favour of a netflix subscription, document store for Google docs and would dearly love to get rid of my mp3 collection in favour of a streaming service. Spotify et al cant get here soon enough for me. Once that happens I wont be in perpetual fear of my laptop breaking down (just replace with another netbook) or losing my various cd/dvd/flash-drive backups.
If one day I'm not able to afford these services or a net connection, I have bigger issues to worry about than being able to enjoy the movies/music.
This stuff is not rare enough to make it worth me owning a copy (unlike in the 90s or before)
That will not continue to be true for long. The future of media consumption (well, at least music consumption) is from streaming services, which don't make you deal with syncing. iTunes may be user friendly, but the whole sync process is still time consuming and frustrating. Also, all music that's been sold on iTunes for over a year is DRM-free, and you can 'upgrade' your older songs for a relatively modest fee if you want to.
There's an argument that video content (which is still laden with DRM) will provide adequate lock-in, but that will probably start streaming too in the next year or two. And I think it's less of a big deal to most people if they can watch a TV show on their phone, anyway.