Quote:
Originally Posted by jhowell
Amazon’s market position allows them to get away with customer unfriendly practices that they believe benefit their bottom line.
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I don't know if this is 100% true. While tighter encryption can prevent stealing of ebooks by users who pass on decrypted books to others for money, or even charity, I think some publishers have probably strong-armed Amazon to keep their properties under tighter control.
As the number one ebook retailer, Amazon has the largest inventory of licensed ebooks. Search through the most highly stocked libraries in the nation, and look for ebooks that were published for the author Richard Deming (of Dragnet fame). Amazon beats LAPL Overdrive (which has only 12 books). FLP and Metro Library have only 3 ebooks each. Amazon has one of his early books,
Tweak the Devil's Nose, on Kindle Unlimited! I know this is like a paid lending library, but until Kobo offers a similar service, I am afraid we are stuck with the big elephant in the room. Naturally, we have to decide whether we are readers first, or book owners. This book sells for $3.99 on Amazon or Kobo. Folks, we need to write to Kobo to ask for a Kobo Unlimited. But I doubt they would invest in the infrastructure necessary to meet publisher requirements.