Self-publishing on Lulu .com: Good or bad?

Bowker (the American ISBN agency) say: "Any publisher whose intent is to sell books or a book product in physical book stores, on Amazon or other online stores, through wholesalers, or to libraries, needs an ISBN for their publication." However, they only sell ISBNs to publishers located in the United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico. To obtain an ISBN for the Phillipines, see here: http://nationallibraryphilippines.wikispaces.com/ISBN+Registration ISBNs from Lulu are free: "You can get an ISBN from Lulu for free in the Lulu Publishing Wizard. You will need to purchase a Distribution package to have your ISBN submitted to Bowker's Books in Print and Nielsen Book Data (ISBN agencies)." What this means is that if you want to publish the book yourself (with your name as the publisher) and want to distribute it through physical bookstores or online ones such as Amazon, then you need an ISBN but an ISBN is NOT needed to publish on Lulu. Lulu ISBNs are available for free in the Lulu Publishing Wizard. Part of an ISBN number specifies a particular publishing house and Lulu ISBNs specify Lulu as the publisher. US ISBNs start at $55 from Bowker and the price for a Philippine ISBN is P120.00 per title (see the Application Requirements on the National Library page above).