Your argument is fine and it could be absolutely true... provided the numbers back it up. What numbers do we need? - The number of users who post iTunes links.

Your argument is fine and it could be absolutely true... provided the numbers back it up. What numbers do we need? - The number of users who post iTunes links. - The clickthrough rate. - The number of users who click through on an iTunes link who don't have iTunes already. - The percentage breakdown of the number of users who will react to the forbidding "you need iTunes" dialog by a) downloading iTunes; b) going away frustrated; c) going away frustrated and writing an angry blog post. - The difference between the previous data and the data on the number of users who, presented with a nice informative page with a discreet "you can get this at iTunes" link, will a) download iTunes; b) go away happy; c) go away and buy the music from a competitor. - The approximate value, in dollars gained or lost, of every scenario I just outlined. - The cost of building and maintaining an additional web app (which, once built, can never be taken down) both in dollars and in loss of focus. Remember that this is Apple: Their general philosophy is to maintain focus by eschewing profitable but low-margin businesses and focusing on a select few high-margin businesses. - The extent to which the existence of two separate Apple music information sites -- the music store and the Web Thingy -- confuses users and decreases the probability of sales across the entire Apple customer base. This is a hard one to measure, but a good usability lab would enjoy tackling it. As it happens, I don't know any of these numbers. Apple, however, knows them all to some approximation, provided they have an analytics person on staff. So, when Apple decides to let AllMusic and Amazon have the free-music-information business to themselves, I'm not equipped to second-guess them.