Oh, and I left out Big Reason C, perhaps the biggest reason of all: Apple doesn't build a web app to sell music because several of their big recording company c

Oh, and I left out Big Reason C, perhaps the biggest reason of all: Apple doesn't build a web app to sell music because several of their big recording company contracts don't let them sell DRM-free music. Apple is being deliberately constrained from competing with Amazon by the record companies. They've decided to fight Apple's growing control of their industry by manipulating the market, allowing Amazon to sell DRM-free MP3s while refusing to give Apple the same terms. The recording industry is playing Amazon off against Apple in a spiteful attempt to maintain more control. So: Apple can't sell much of their music without DRM, though they know as well as anyone else that DRM is a dead end. Selling DRM tracks through a Web app might not be impossible, but it certainly is difficult, and it's hard to believe it isn't a waste of time when Amazon is there to clean your clock in the marketplace (to say nothing of the P2P elephant in the room). Apple could put up a Web store that sells the DRM-free portion of their catalog while leaving the DRM-hobbled portion in iTunes, but it doesn't take Steve Jobs to see that as a spectacular marketing mistake.