[jonhendry]

To be more specific, third parties submit public domain works for distribution as Kindle books. Some people put a $0.00 price, other people specify a non-zero price. Amazon puts it all on there.

A given public-domain text may be represented on the kindle store many times over, submitted by different parties, with different formatting, at different prices.

As a kindle owner, I don't so much mind that there are Gutenberg-sourced public domain texts on there for sale: Maybe a $.99 one is formatted better than the others.

What I mind is that the kindle store is spammed full of such stuff.

The example that bugs me most is the person who took the ten years of Samuel Pepys' diaries, split them up into 120 ebooks each containing one month's worth of diary entries, and put them on the store.

I don't recall if they were charging for them or not, but I was browsing the "history" section of the store, and hit a seemingly never-ending span of one-month Pepys Diaries. Many screens full. On a slow kindle display.

[Tichy]

A general problem of app stores. What is needed is better discovery methods and filters.

[jokermatt999]

Are there any start ups working on this problem? It seems like a ripe niche. Perhaps not so much for iPhone (since you need root), but Android certainly.

[Tichy]

There are some for Androids that try to recommend stuff based on the apps your friends have installed. There is also an YC company I think, unfortunately I forgot the name.