I think the real point here is that each choice has an associated cost. With Linux, it's the extra time necessary to do this sort of research and configuration. You can reduce the headaches associated, but the Linux community doesn't always make that as clear as possible to the customer.
With Apple, instead of the extra time/thought, it's a bit more money to make the purchase. It also doesn't hurt having a single entity doing most of the communication and making sure the customer is happy, by making choices/support relatively simple.
The problem here is that they aren't easy costs to compare, since they are listed in different resources. I think this is why a lot of Apple users say things like "You just need to use it.", since quantifying all the little user experience gains doesn't lend it self well to a comparison of technical specs.
Oof. I haven't seen any definitive confirmation on one-lend-ever-per-title (they seem cagey about it), but looking at this purely economically:
This is by some measure a winning strategy, since if I only have one "lend", I will very likely want to share it to the person most likely to buy it and create an additional "lend" to propagate the book.
It does seem like they are missing out on the power of inter-consumer advocacy, i.e. "Everybody read this now!" They should at least re-credit you (if not several times over) if you share with someone who later buys the book.
It may give the illusion of a good strategy, but limitless invites will spread the book faster leading to more buys overall (in my opinion). Since many people like to own books they've enjoyed and the freedom this model gives also pleases consumers I'd prefer it.
Is Google using that 9x% market share (in search engines) to decimate competition in other markets based solely on the tying occurring in the original market (i.e., what Microsoft was actually convicted of doing)? No.
Could your problem be that you're pushing the wrong product? If people don't find your product useful/exciting/etc, there's no reason to expect any amount of coverage to make an impact on your traffic.
I think they probably consider buying a single track from an album and buying a 'digital single' (a small release with 1 or more tracks) two different things.
I doubt the former case is considered a 'single' in the traditional sense of the word in the music industry.
edit: I had no idea about the 'grouping' tag. I'll have to give that a try, thanks.
another edit: okay 'grouping' is still useless if I choose to sort by album or album by year (preferred). I guess my only solution is to append (mono) and (stereo) to each album but I'm REALLY pissed I have to do this.
