A cynic would point out that anyone who is purchasing FLAC music is, by definition, not purchasing from the iTunes Store, so there is very little business reason to facilitate this behavior.

A more practical person would say that nearly everyone who does purchase from an alternative store doesn't want FLAC anyway (or at least, shouldn't want it, though it would not surprise me to see a lot of people who opt for FLAC do so because they think it's a good thing when they really get no benefit from doing so). Very few people ever need to reencode their music these days. Back when MP3 was new and newer encoders kept coming out that got better results, it made more sense, but these days high bit-rate MP3 or medium bit-rate AAC is more than sufficient for effectively all personal uses. Given that, users who purchase from alternative stores would be best served by picking a lossy format that is compatible with their software/hardware (e.g. for Apple users that's AAC if it's provided, or MP3 if not).

For those vanishingly small number of people who have an actual use for FLAC and who wish to play their music on Apple products, it's not very difficult to transcode it to a format that is supported by Apple products. They should be transcoding it for personal usage anyway, because there's no need to be carrying around unnecessarily large files on mobile devices or on laptops. Keep the FLAC somewhere safe if you think you'll actually need it again, and transcode to a more appropriate format. Or better yet, just download the appropriate format to begin with (most independent stores I've seen that offer multiple formats let you download in all the formats you want to instead of forcing you to pick).

> Yep, since it's the only practical lossless format offered as above. And Apple chose not to support it to screw their users.

You do realize that your repeated assertions that Apple is intentionally choosing not to support FLAC out of some personified desire to screw their users is ridiculous, right? I don't know why you keep claiming this. Even if you want to personify Apple instead of treating them like a company that makes decisions that are in the best interests of the company, it's absurd to claim Apple is trying to screw its users.

But beyond that, you keep claiming FLAC is "the only practical lossless format". And yet by your own argument it's impractical, since it's not supported on the hardware/software combination you want.