It is definitely a stupid strategy. I have a large iTunes library, and when they released the apple music app for windows a few years ago I tried switching over. Somehow the new app was even worse than iTunes, so I had to figure out how to switch everything back. At the same time I tried installing the iCloud app for PC - that may be literally the worst piece of software I have had the displeasure of using. It installed a bunch of services on my PC, added itself to the file explorer, and then failed to let me log into my account. That was also fun to figure out how to completely remove.

Maybe it is working again now.. I have no real desire to test it again. Clearly they released these applications (after years of complaints) knowing that they weren't functional, or possibly without any testing whatsoever. Overall it is a laughable effort from a company with a budget as large as Apple's.