Quote:
Originally Posted by MrsJoseph
I would say it is almost the same - except that Amazon does not allow others to use the .awz (.azw?) format. If the format was(is?) available for use, I would expect Tesco to carry that format for my (or rather your) use. I don't like the fact that Amazon does not make their format available for use for library lending. I don't own a kindle so I am unfamiliar with the availability of the format outside of Amazon's door.
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Amazon's shunning of lending libraries is the only serious mistake they have made since re-entering the ebook business with the Kindle. If they had not done this, lending libraries would probably only be providing MOBI ebooks and Kindle would be 95+% of the entire English language ebook market. Instead, lending libraries have largely dropped MOBI for ePub and there is enough market share left to support several ePub-based reading devices.
It is true that only the Kindle store has Kindle DRM, but any publisher or bookstore is free to sell DRM-free MOBI ebooks for the Kindle (MOBI and AZW are essentially the same). In essence, Amazon's strategy only works because publishers are fixated on DRM.