@Gimli
You're wrong aboyut not being able to lend your books. As a former Kindle Tier 2 specialist, I can assure you that you can definitely lend your books to someone else as long as they have a kindle as well. You will always have a copy of your book on both your device and on the cloud, unless the book gets refunded fore some reason. Then it will be deleted from your account, but will stay on your device until you connect to Whisperlink. So, even if you delete your account, you will still retain all your copies on your device.
As someone who owns both a Kindle and a Kobo, I definitely prefer the Kobo who its flexibility. However, all you need to convert your azw or mobi files is Calibre and Epubor to strip the DRM. Amazon's whisperlink environment is great as it allows you to listen to an audiobook from Audible and then continue reading it from the same point where you stopped listening, on your Kindle using Whisperlink. There's no other company that can provide that kind of integration.
If you're an aspirant author Createspace allows you to self-publish at minimal costs and maximise you royalties. You can also use Createspace for doing your own albums or DVDs.