I went through this migration last year. A few things that helped:
Calibre is the escape hatch. Converts everything to EPUB. Even if you don't use it day-to-day, it's the best tool for getting your library out of Amazon's format.
Public domain catalogs are huge now. Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, Gutenberg - tens of thousands of well-formatted free EPUBs. Most people don't realize how much is out there.
For actually reading on macOS/iOS, I ended up on BookShelves (https://getbookshelves.app) after trying a few options. Native app, reads EPUB and comics, has Calibre wireless sync, and browses those public domain catalogs directly. Books are just files on your device - no account, no cloud lock-in.
Honestly the hardest part was realizing how much of my library I'd been renting rather than owning.
If you're even the slightest bit tech savvy you can find a DRM stripping utility for Calibre. Apprentice Alf is long retired, but a fork of that DeDRM still is maintained
I've been using my 2012 Paperwhite Kindle with Calibre and the experience is honestly great. The only thing I miss from the Amazon shut down is Wikipedia lookup and highlight/note syncing. Otherwise, I've steered clear of Amazon DRM for a long time so I didn't really care because I was already sideloading books with Calibre.
I can understand why one would want to move from Kindle to another device, but this article starts by complaining that support is being dropped for devices from before 2013. I can even understand being upset by this, but I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. Could be. But I sure wouldn't count on it.
Usually an unsupported device stops getting new functionality and security fixes. The unsupported Kindles lose existing functionality, i.e. the ability to add books. Not quite bricked unlike, say, Sonos, but you are limited to the books y already downloaded to them.
This is inherent to DRM, and the reason why I would never have considered buying one in the first place. The eReader I have is a PocketBook Versa. Same price as a Kindle, extensible using microSD and I can add my non-DRM books however I want. Fortunately, Apple Books ePub FairPlay DRM is fairly easy to remove, so that's where I buy them.
Among other things, if you become logged out of the device or it's reset you will no longer be able to login with an amazon account ( which is required ) to use the device
You can use the Kindle without an Amazon account if you're fine with loading all your books over USB. It will give you a nag pop-up telling you to log in each time you go to the main menu, but the pop-up doesn't show up while you're in a book so it's not a big deal.
Often big company drm software to read encrypted/drm files will have a time limit on it, where it will stop working if not updated - because they require knowing the current date. This is how they could block it.
Dvd players didn't need to know the date. The new world of constantly evolving drm schemes falls into this world, making it east to eol devices if not updated
"The move will mean owners of older Kindles, including its earliest models such as the Kindle Touch and some Kindle Fire tablets, will be unable to download new e-books."
For a more tech-oriented site, according to Ars Technica Amazon removed the ability to upload over USB:
"Previously, owners of old Kindles could have worked around this loss of functionality by downloading books locally and transferring them via USB. But Amazon removed the ability to download books to a PC or Mac in February of 2025."
I don't like to brag "I told you so" but I saw this coming 16 years ago:
Nothing you've quoted is wrong per se, but it's also not the full story.
Amazon removed the ability to download files from them to your computer. And they will soon be removing the ability to download files from them directly to older kindle devices. You can still download a MOBI or EPUB from anywhere else online (though I think some older kindles don't support EPUB) and transfer it via USB, and will still be able to after they EOL those older devices.
Even new Kindles don't support EPUB, per-se. The Send-to-Kindle service started supporting EPUB, and converts them to AZW3 or KFX for actual delivery to your Kindle.
But you cannot just USB an EPUB onto your Kindle without any conversion process. (Calibre does make it very simple, though.)
Interesting. Once again, I don't have a Kindle so I can't verify any of this. I do have a PocketBook Versa with stock firmware and a M5Stack Paper S3 running Crosspoint Reader, but hardly use either as I prefer reading on LCD or OLED tablets. The only formats I care about are DRM-free ePub and PDF.
Totally fair. I don't read much on Kindles either (mostly on my OLED phone). There's just a lot of dis/misinformation around these deprecations that I feel should be corrected. I worked on Kindles earlier in my career and still have a soft spot in my heart for them.
No you can't do that on a kindle. They have a "send to kindle" feature that allows you to add non-Amazon purchased ebooks to your library. But that requires support from the backend (and an internet connection).
I'm assuming send to kindle will no longer be supported on these older devices.
You can send books to your kindle over USB, and I do that all the time for larger books that are above the size limit on the email system.
The big problem is that Amazon no longer allows you to download books from their site to your desktop, so you have no way to actually get a purchased book and send it to the kindle even over USB. However, if you buy non-DRM books from other book sellers you won't have this problem.
They block you from doing this if you're not logged in (as I discovered after wiping and rooting one to give to a friend recently).
As evidence, note that instructions for rooting them requires the device to be registered - this is because it won't be accessible over USB until you do so: https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/
> The big problem is that Amazon no longer allows you to download books from their site to your desktop
I've bought a number of books on Kindle that were explicitly marked as being sold without DRM. Does this mean I've lost access to any DRM-free downloads that I haven't already backed up?
If you bought them from Amazon, you won't be able to get them after the cutoff date directly to that Kindle via WiFi. You may not be able to get them in a format that old Kindles can read at all.
Download and back them up now. Or just pirate them if you need them later.
The entire Kindle store system will cease working on older Kindles after the cutoff. Still works as a reader, but expect to lose things like location sync across devices.
I don't buy from Amazon, I don't turn on WiFi on my Kindle because it eats battery life, I always travel with a laptop, and I only use it to read outdoors. So I really don't care. It's my beach book. At home, I'd rather read on my iPad.
Oh, and FWIW, you can install Tailscale to a jailbroken Kindle and Taildrop files to it over WiFi, if it can read the format (for the old ones being discussed, that's mobi or azw3).
I have a Kindle that took a fall about 8 years ago and the wifi has never worked since then. I've been able to load books onto it using USB with no issues.
Sonos backed down on the bricking offer, you did still got the discount for a new product but didn't have to effectively destroy the old one - it's just unsupported by any new features.
I feel the same way. To be honest I'm on my third kindle, their life-span seems to be about five years for me.
I don't love having to replace them, but paying €120 every five years is probably worth it. I mean that's €2/month, and I have a huge library of books which I load via calibre.
I read daily, on the bus to work, at home in bed, and while there are "more free" ereaders I've become accustomed to the kindle and have no complaints. If I were not so clumsy they'd last longer, so that's on me.
My physical library is pretty big, but being able to carry 50+ books at all times? And have a battery life of a few weeks? (I stay in airplane mode, as I transfer books via the USB cable). It's hard to complain.
Same boat as you, I'm on my second kindle in 10 years. Absolutely love the device and the convenience of reading on it. Also have a large physical library that I still add to occasionally (esp in relation to the space I have in Condo buildings), but reading on my kindle is my go-to choice.
I've become used to the idea of having 10+ books in my bag at a time, instead of having to choose which physical ones to pack.
Plus over the years I've gotten very familiar with the UI of the kindles, they're comfortable to hold and work in a way that feels natural and no-effort.
Not to mention that those devices all support regular EPUBs out of the box, and so you can still put new content on them today.
Of course, you'll get a bit more out of them if you convert your EPUBs to KEPUBs with Kepubify[0], but the point remains that Kobos are supplemented by their cloud/connected features, not inherently dependent on them.
I don’t understand why anyone would choose a Kindle over the Kobo range of devices.
When I bought the Kobo Clara it was also a significantly better device purely on hardware specs. It was slightly more expensive, but that’s more than paid for by how long it’s already lasted me, whereas my spouse’s kindle (bought before we discovered Kobo), is already e-waste.
Kobo has also officially tied up with iFixit to provide official fixing guides and parts, allowing for relatively inexpensive hardware repair (to be fair, the battery replacement process I went through my device was quite annoying due to the waterproofing layer, but it worked, and my device is much older than their iFixit partnership, so hopefully the newer devices have repairability more in mind).
Support here is pretty loose. These devices were already not supported in the traditional sense. They were not getting firmware updates, they were just allowed to continue using Amazon's DRM scheme and connect to the store.
AFAIK it's still possible to authorize ancient supported ePub readers with Adobe Digital Editions and load up DRMed books from providers like Google Play even with devices like the Sony PRS-505 (e.g,https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/reader-digital-book...), despite them exiting the market over a decade ago. Kobo also has continued providing firmware updates to devices from 2011, and even their unsupported devices can still load books via ADE or the Kobo Desktop App.
> I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years.
I don't have that faith either, but it still irks me when good hardware has to get chucked for software reasons. And this goes double for when those software reasons are about stupid-ass DRM.
But in this particular instance I don't consider it to be that bad for me personally, since I don't rely on being able to access Amazon DRM books. But a lot of perfectly working devices are going to get landfilled for this.
I would point out that in 45 years ago, in 1981, the typewriter as a product was over 100 years old (first sold 1874). There was a lot of time to standardize by 1981. And there probably haven't been a lot of serviceable pre-1900s typewriters for quite a while.
The first Kindle came out in 2007. Who knows what an e-reader will be like in 2107?
I got it. And I've played a 1905 Martin and you can still plug a 1950s telecaster into a 1950s amp in turn plugged into wall power and everything works. Just saying, that is not the consumer electronics world in 2026.
The amp would only be working if it had repairs multiple times by now though. Capacitors don't last 75 years, and tubes last much shorter than capacitors.
A replacement set of tubes for a 1950s Fender amp costs $200-$400 today, just for parts. A lot more than a new Kindle. A Kindle might even be less e-waste than a set of tubes too.
What is the support burden? It needs to be able to sync with your ebook library. Thats it.
Kindles aren't like phones and computers, you dont need an upgrade every few years because software consumes the latest hardware. They just open epub files.
That catalog is diminishing if not almost completely gone. Even if an app exists, unless it is (mostly) local, chances are that it's so old that it cannot talk to the remote server using the correct API. For mainstream apps, if it launches at all, many will immediately tell you to upgrade to a newer version otherwise it won't work.
There's a world of difference between software dependencies going out of date between many releases and a company deliberately disabling older devices from downloading static ebook files instead of maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility.
> maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility
Sounds easy for you to type that out on a forum without having to maintain a two decade old stack, which probably has tons of "software dependencies going out of date"
reMarkable is doing a decent job, their first generation device launched in 2017. Still getting updates. It is discontinued for sale, but there is no reason to believe reMarkable will stop updating their other devices if they're _still_ updating a device they don't even sell anymore.
On top of that, their aftermarket and open source situation is pretty good.
They're not ideal e-readers though, but if you're in the market for a good e-ink device with long-term support and that works well with calibre? Might be worth a look.
until the software compatibility with the older model compromises the newer models. Kudos for them for still updating a device no longer on sale, but Apple does the same, until it doesn't. The fact that they are still updating the first generation today does not mean they will do so tomorrow.
What's also not mentioned is that the discontinued devices don't support KFX.
KFX is the modern kindle format, AZW meanwhile is heavily PDF-based. KFX was designed ground-up by Amazon, supports every modern feature they could think of, and presumably couldn't be backported to 2013 and earlier Kindles; AZW meanwhile was basically a wrapper around a subset of PDF. KFX is a complete redo, notable enough it's what "Enhanced Typesetting" on every Kindle product page means, not a small DRM upgrade.
By doing this, all authors will soon receive guarantees that they will have the full KFX feature set when designing eBooks, and won't break AZW by accident. Trying to point this out though to the "it's about DRM" or "it's about obsolescence" crowd will get you downvoted to oblivion before the truth is even considered (speaking from experience, -4 when I dared suggest legitimate reasons exist) and is a prime example of echo chambers and deeply ingrained bias on this forum.
The original AZW format was MOBI-based, not PDF-based. MOBI originally from a company called MobiPocket, which Amazon eventually acquired, was built to be an ePub competitor and like ePub was an HTML and JS-based solution, but in a somewhat different, proprietary DRM-friendlier container format. (ePub is "just" a ZIP file, with the DRM applied sometimes inside the container rather than outside it.)
MOBI stopped keeping up with ePub standards and standard features, in part because Amazon acquired MobiPocket. The KFX is just ePub with a new proprietary DRM container around the ZIP file that is ePub's container.
The 2013 boundary is also the "supports ePUB files directly without a conversion process" boundary in Amazon's kindle OS. It's not just useful to know for book file authors, but as a consumer it becomes useful for a quick "Can I buy a standards compliant DRM-free EPUBs such as from sites like DriveThruFiction and just send them to my Kindle with no other steps?"
No Kindle supports ePub natively. Amazon converts ePub to a supported format when you use the send to kindle email service. If you just load the book on over USB it won't work.
Every kindle that supports the new format (Kindle devices since 2013 with latest OS upgraded) support loading non-DRM ePubs directly over USB. There's no conversion anymore. (I've done this.)
Amazon's not going to openly advertise that this deprecation is also the line in the sand where "non-DRM ePub just works", but that's what has happened.
Of course one of the sadder problems with the ePub ecosystem is that it uses the same file extension for DRM contained and non-DRM contained ePubs. At a glance it isn't easy to tell if an ePub is not DRMed. Amazon does not support any of the existing ePub DRM schemes. Their own KFX DRM is very unique and proprietary and doesn't play nice with ePub DRM "standards". You can't load DRMed ePubs over USB, those don't work. Sometimes that gives an impression still that "Amazon does not support ePubs natively", but that's the nature of DRM and how much DRM hurts the entire ebook industry in every direction.
Are you sure about that? Even Amazon's own sales page state: "Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion; Audible audio format (AAX). Learn more about supported file types for personal documents." implying that ePub only works through conversion. They don't support DRMed ePubs through conversion either so it's a bit odd they say that instead of including it natively.
As I said, anecdotally I've already done it. Amazon only just enabled the PC "Send to Kindle" to support ePub directly instead of the old silly work around of rename the .epub to .kfx (and no other change). They've been very bad at keeping their list of formats up to date in their own documentation. Some of that perhaps because they don't want it to be so obvious and it is intentional obfuscation (to keep people using their store rather than going elsewhere for books), some of that because a lot of their kindle documentation seems to be in a "isn't broke, don't fix it" frozen state for years at time. You'll also note that the text you found doesn't mention "Kindle Format 10 (KFX)" at all and also you might notice that TXT and PDF are mentioned on both sides of that text as both "natively" and "through conversion" which seems to imply the original text was from the era when they were converted and they were added to the "natively" side later without remembering to clean up the other side. (They both have native support today.)
TXT and PDF are on both sides because Amazon will convert them to the appropriate Amazon format if you use send to kindle. TXT has always been natively supported on Kindle. As fair as Amazon is concerned, KFX is an internal format only for their use so there's no need to list it. When Amazon added ePub conversion officially KFX had already existed for over half a decade.
Your anecdote also seems to be the only instance of it working natively. Keep in mind Calibre will autoconvert for you.
I don't follow the logic here. Users of old devices aren't asking for new features, they're merely asking for their devices not to be bricked. If an author wants to design against a new set of features they can do that, and that book will not be available on older hardware. Just like, if you want to build an Android app against a newer version you can do that without forcing every human being to replace their phone.
The old kindles can still read all previously downloaded content. Amazon's warning is literally exactly that - you can't download new books or redownload old books (i.e. AZW versions).
They are bricking the devices and not allowing them to log back into the service if they ever log out. All they had to do was not allow them to access / purchase from the store rather than keeping them from logging in.
but that has nothing to do with what you just said. How would being able to continue to download, or purchase, old books affect the ability of authors to create books to new standards going forward? It's not like me being able to still buy an ebook version made in 2015 on my device from 2012 going to interfere with you publishing a book in 2026. That's just bricking the device in case the user ever has to reset their device or has not downloaded their library.
It complicates the Store UX, too, if they have to add "This book is/is not supported by your device" warnings to every book which also needs to know which device you are intending. With the average kindle owner often buying books directly from Amazon.com rather than the on-device Store and often having 2+ devices, they'd possibly need an exponential number of those warnings ("This book is supported by your Kindle Oasis and Kindle Paperwhite C, but not your Kindle Paperwhite B or Kindle Paperwhite A").
Also, maybe the publisher of that book in 2015 wants to upgrade to new ebook features for that book in 2026, for instance they want to add the physical book's original illustrations now that Kindle finally supports more illustrations. Does Amazon have to keep both of the 2015 and 2026 versions of the book depending on which device the user wants to use? How confused is the user when some of their devices have lovely illustrations and others don't? Should the user be able to choose to read the 2015 version of the file even on devices that support the 2026 version because they hate the book's illustrations and find them distracting?
(That gets into a larger discussion that Amazon has always preferred updating books in place on kindles with later editions as they are published, which archivists hate especially because the kindle doesn't have a great "edition version number" to rely on to track for when Amazon has delivered an update to a file, but which often consumers prefer because typos slowly disappear and books subtly become better than the last time you read them, presuming the Publisher isn't doing some drastic bait and switch and it focused only on "plussing" the book.)
I read a moderate amount I'd say, about 2 weeks average for a book, and I was using a very old and very beat-up but still functioning 4th gen Kindle until recently.
However, I woke up from my stupor when Micro$oft's eBook store closed and purged their library from under everybodies butts. Giving Amazon complete control over my library is a horrible thought, so I'm out.
I am now a happy Boox Go 10.3 + BookFusion user. Crisp screen, great battery life, full android with play store underneath. It syncs to my phone, has most of the bells and whistles I need in terms of reading, and it supports writing handwritten notes (albeit not onto the ebook itself; that's apparently too sci-fi even for 2026), and Bookfusion can sync notes into Obisidian vaults via an Obsidian plugin. I feel in control. I buy books from alternative sites with either no DRM to begin with, or where I'm confident I can remove it. Bookfusion costs me 20EUR a year.
I'm fairly happy with my setup.
EDIT: yes, I'm aware Boox are not the good guys in this story. I have not signed up to any of their services - the device is perfectly usable without that. I turned their book shop off immediately, and I do monitor+block the Chinese IPs it's trying to reach on my router.
In my view the death of the eReader is just the price fixing on ebooks -- that ebooks are sold at par with at a premium to physical books still bothers me, and I think is responsible for the fact that the Kindle is dying -- Amazon can't move enough ebooks at these price levels to be worth investing anything in interested new hardware.
Is the Kindle dying? A cursory check suggests otherwise. Checking the sources on the "Sales" section of Wikipedia, they sold $5bn of devices in 2014 [0], and then hit a decade-long high in 2024 [1]. Now that's much to go on, and could easily have been worded carefully to imply things that aren't true. But at worst it seems like Kindle sales are doing fine. At a ballpark of $200/device, and assuming 2024 is as low as 2014, that means they sold a ballpark of 25 million devices in 2024. The percent of people reading ebooks annually is also increasing [2] (albeit slowly; arguably it's actually flat, but that's still not dying).
This is a mea culpa on my part -- looks like the situation here has improved*.
I pretty much only buy ebooks now and the prices have been stable, but apparently print prices have been shooting up so the situation has now been corrected.
* improved in the ratio of ebook price to physical book price; ebook prices are still too high but that's just me complaining about how a quarter used to buy a loaf of bread or whatever.
An ebook has zero cost of distribution and no middlemen.
A physical book has to be typeset, printed, shipped to stores, shipped to customers, marketed in store, etc etc etc.
If a physical book is sold for $10 at least half that is printing, distribution and retail.
Like the GP, the price fixing of ebooks at the Dane price as physical books mothers me as well, particularly because physical books can be sold, lent or given away.
The exact same thing happened when CDs launched. They were cheaper to produce than vinyl or cassette very quickly but they sold at a premium for no reason at all.
These are all fixed costs not per-unit costs. If you sell 10,000 ebooks or 10 million ebooks, the costs are basically the same.
And book themselves are 500k-5MB in size typically, which is a single HTTP request, basically. Actual costs of storage and distribution are basically zero (per unit). And sure 10M books is more traffic than 10k books but we're talking $0.10/GB or less in baseline traffic. This is like Cloudfare free tier levels of traffic. And while the traffic costs do scale, it's completely dwarfed by the amortization of fixed costs like editing, formatting and cover design.
As for tech support, it's not the same. Publishers have to handle returns from retailers. Ebooks don't. It's no more complicated than revoking a key and the actual process of requesting a refund requires no human intervention either.
This really feels like I made some blanket statement than offended your sensibilities so you decided to argue without knowing why, if I'm being honest.
>> This really feels like I made some blanket statement than offended your sensibilities so you decided to argue without knowing why, if I'm being honest.
Because you said this:
"An ebook has zero cost of distribution and no middlemen."
and then said this:
"These are all fixed costs not per-unit costs."
Which are two different arguments.
This really feels like you made two different arguments, then I offended your sensibilities by pointing it out, so you decided to argue without knowing why, if I'm being honest.
I, too, was once naive and thought that the price of goods is largely determined by the cost of production.
But as anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows, the price is based on what people are willing to pay for it. The cost of production merely dictates whether it is viable to sell in the market.
If most people are willing to pay $10 for an ebook, when the hardcopy is also $10, then $10 is what they'll sell it for.
Whatever the rationale: People will pay what people are willing to pay. If the price is too high, competition should bring it down. The price clearly wasn't too high.
When I purchase a book, I decide how much I'll pay based on what the book will do for me. I'll get the same entertainment/info whether it is printed or electronic. For some types of books I prefer printed, so I won't pay much for the ebook. For fiction, I prefer electronic (already have too many physical books in the house), so I'll happily pay for it.
Sure, it's easy to evaluate anything if you make up plausible-sounding numbers about it.
The costs of printing and retail are definitely less than half the sales price: https://www.davidderrico.com/cost-breakdowns-e-books-vs-prin... Publishers say it's 10%; Derrico thinks they are underestimating certain logistical costs but no way it's 50%.
Ok, then the other thing you're missing is that distributors also get a chunk of the ebook. You said ebooks have "no middlemen" but that's blatantly false, Amazon is the emperor of ebook middlemen. I suppose publishers could try selling ebooks directly but then they lose the Kindle platform + Amazon's reach, so Amazon charges for that service. They are a middleman.
And in some sense the publisher is a middleman. While authors can sell directly, they rarely do. All of the books I have read had editors, publishers, etc. Not just the author writing and uploading.
I might be misreading your message, but most ebooks I buy are in the $5-15 range, whilst physical books I buy are usually $20-30 range. I'm reading your message as in "they are equally expensive" which is not the case. But I'm having a bit of trouble parsing your second sentence lol.
It looks like you're right -- what I've noticed is that ebook prices have remained steady (and too high) but what I failed to notice is that physical book prices have grown wildly since I was last looking at the situation.
So maybe the economics are shifting -- I certainly hope so. I don't know if there's a big market for a premium eReader (like the Oasis) or whether there's a push to improve the UX to the point where it's usable, but I would very much like both of those things to happen.
That said, Amazon is definitely making a streaming push and the UX for their "Fire Stick" is on par with the UX for an actual "Dumpster Fire" so maybe they're just really bad at it.
That pricing really only started in 2010. Prior to that, publishers would sell them to Amazon at (presumably) a similar cost to wholesale physical books, and Amazon would mark them up much less than the physical books.
If that is true, of which I remain highly skeptical, then it implies that books are wildly inefficient to produce.
What on earth are all the middlemen between book being authored and it being sold to a customer that add so much overhead that the cost of printing and logistics disappears in the noise???
> If that is true, of which I remain highly skeptical, then it implies that books are wildly inefficient to produce.
It just means that publishers are really good at manufacturing physical goods. They've been doing it for several hundred years so no big surprise there.
Books don't sell in large quantities. The economics of scale for the publishes for labor aren't there.
No one is getting rich off of fiction publishing except for the rare break out author. Publishers go out of business (or get acquired) all the time because they are constantly one step away from being insolvent.
This is also why the industry has massively consolidated.
I highly suggest reading breakdowns of the finances of publishing books, it is an interesting field that is incredibly different than how we are used to seeing numbers work in software.
The middlemen are giving your book some (still probably rather small) chance of being bought in significant numbers. If you just want a big stack of books and don't care if anyone buys them, they're not especially expensive to produce.
When you consider that different ebooks and different font selection can result in lines and pages breaking at any random place, ebooks may actually be more expensive to produce.
Don't think I've ever read a properly produced ebook. Page breaks fall wherever and formatting is dictated more by my size/border/etc choices than by whomever "produced" then book.
Nevertheless automatic typesetting and formatting have existed for decades! TeX and LaTeX are ancient and produce better looking results than any book I've ever read on any of my ereaders, and those aren't the only tools in this space.
Whatever people are paying for such "production" seems wasted.
I converted ebooks into PDFs specifically formatted for my reader size and typeset in the fonts I like. It had proper kerning, hyphenation, widow/orphan control, drop capitals, etc.
However that PDF is not reflow-able (or changeable in any way) once it's on the device, and that's not what people are buying ebook readers for.
> We are still dealing with a home screen that prioritizes advertisements and promoted recommendations over your actual library. Navigating a large collection of books remains a chore, with sluggish animations and a lack of robust folder management that has been a standard feature on rival devices for years.
Such claims make me think that this article is biased.
There are two tabs on main Kindle screen - Home and Library (and also pretty good search). In Library you can see all your books AND collections as folders.
Very frequently when I turn on my Kindle it starts on “Home”. I have never found anything on “Home” remotely useful, and just want to see the books that I already have on the device, but they keep pushing me over to the screen full of ads (and it often takes >5 seconds to switch screens after I tap on “Library” for some reason). I think that's what they're talking about.
The kobo store has problems with DRM but Kobo devices do not. they’ll open whatever you put on the file system (and it’s treated as a first class citizen along with anything you’ve bought from them). They also are extremely easy to install custom firmware on.
Kindle's are cheaper because Amazon sells them at or below cost to lure users into their ecosystem. This helps them control the market from both the seller and consumer sides, in keeping with their overall business model. Add to that the fact that you don't really own the e-books you "buy" through Amazon, just like pretty much every other digital "purchase" these days, and that's enough for me to never buy one.
Of course, the general state of e-book devices is pretty abysmal. There are no good options I'm aware of.
> Add to that the fact that you don't really own the e-books you "buy" through Amazon, just like pretty much every other digital "purchase" these days, and that's enough for me to never buy one.
True. That's why I prefer to buy books on other platforms, sometimes directly on authors website.
And nothing stops me from reading them on Kindle. Maybe that's the reason why I don't understand the problem here.
This is such a non-issue. Whether my device phones home to the US or to China makes no difference at all to me (as a on US / China citizen). Boox devices do not serve any kinds of ads, are fully Android, you can customize your starting screen however you like, read every format (including amazon. kwx), have great battery life and I own what I put on them and nobody bricks them for whatever reason. Even better: I can buy wherever I want from* and download directly from the store to the device.
I've never had to interact with the Kobo store (which I guess is what you mean?) and just chuck the epubs I have manually, they all just work out of the box.
The only DRM-related thing I've dealt with is me hooking Libby up to it to read a book I borrowed.
Most, if not all, ebook stores have "issues" with DRM because publishers demand it (and authors too often simply go along with it). Amazon and Kobo (and other ebook stores as well) let authors of self-published books decide whether or not to put DRM on their books.
> There are two tabs on main Kindle screen - Home and Library (and also pretty good search). In Library you can see all your books AND collections as folders.
Two tabs, which one do they default you to? Which one do they default you to?
Such claims make me think that this post is biased.
While I agree with the sentiment, one nitpick - "When you buy a Kindle, you are buying a disposable product with a predetermined shelf life. Meanwhile, when you buy a Kobo, you are buying a tool that can be maintained for a decade or more." My Kindle is still going strong after 15 years, including a few years of not using it at all when I was enjoying reading physical books. That longevity is why I'm angry about this. I have a perfectly serviceable device and it's effectively being taken away from me.
The statement can be extended to almost any device indeed. To my dismay, Tolinos/Vivlios (or whatever your country calls the rebranded device) haven’t seen any improvements in forever and the local stores are hard to use.
I’m still using my Kindle Oasis 2nd Gen, plugged off and jailbroken, side loading my old collection or public domain books. No one has made something remotely as nice to use as the Oasis, including Amazon themselves. Jailbreaking was quite easy. The only thing that will kill my Oasis is the battery being nearly impossible to change.
My Kindle 7 has severely degraded battery life now, it barely lasts two weeks. It's got to be about 12 years old now.
The screen's got some little black dots where it fell out of my laptop bag in the back of the Landrover and got squashed under the spare tyre and a toolbox. Even that didn't kill it though, it just gave it a couple of little black dots about the size of a lower-case "o" in the smallest font. I can live with that.
Do NOT buy a Kobo device for Libby integration. It is a LIE. I found out the hard way.
Kobo only integrates with OverDrive, the predecessor to Libby. You can only use one library card at a time with OverDrive, and don't have access to the audioboks or periodicals on Libby. Meanwhile Kobo will aggressively push you to sign up for their monthly subscription to get access to that kind of content.
If you want Libby on e-paper, sans Kindle, your best bet is to look at the E Paper android tablets (I use Boox) and just install the Libby app. The experience isn't perfect but its the least worst option.
Just want to semi recommend Pocketbook (please do your own research, never take a random recommendation et al).
I bought the Verse Pro Color. It doesn't require an account, it doesn't require wifi. I transfer epubs via USB and the pocketbook works on device without ever logging into a Pocketbook account.
There are other reasons not to like the device, but it's refreshing not to need to login to even use the device.
Kobo works with Libby if you use Adobe Digital Editions as an intermediary.
From the Libby web page, you have an option to download the ASCM. Load that onto ADE, and you have the book. Then plug in your Kobo and transfer the book. It even respects the loan duration!
This isn't perfect, but it works, so I can't agree that Libby and Kobo are absolutely incompatible.
I tried that, and it was incredibly frustrating to have to run back to the PC every time, not to mention vacations and things like that. At that point you don't even need Libby since you can do the same with digital editions off your library's website.
I forgot one more important thing: OverDrive only has a subset of the libraries on Libby, so it's possible for a library to be on Libby and be unavailable on Kobo.
The site causes cancer but the conclusion of TFA is sensible: just get a Kobo and be done with it. I had a Kindle for years but there's no reason to stick to Amazon for e-readers anymore.
Agree, though for me it's only been a year, so all I can feel toward your "for a decade" is jealousy. It really is a much more enjoyable experience. If only I'd switched sooner!
Kobo was a Canadian company (before being bought out by Rakuten, though I think they still have a big office in Toronto) and I'm Canadian. So I think we were early adopters of their e-readers for that reason. All our bookstores and electronics retailers (RIP Futureshop) carried them.
I really want to like the Kobo. I really do. But I've had such bad luck with their devices. For example, sometimes the pages randomly start turning, really fast, so I completely lose my place. It also never reliably syncs between devices. And the integration with Overdrive is unreliable, only working some of the time. I also read it in the bath sometimes, which supposedly is one of the features available due to the water resistance, but the steam causes random clicks on the device, which makes it not really functional.
For me, I've mostly switched to reading on my phone. Dark mode, plus OLED, works very well for my needs.
If you have trouble with the default software on a Kobo ereader, you can install other applications aside it, then switch to them after boot. In my experience, the installation process is innocuous and straightforward.
I use Koreader: after experimenting with various configuration parameters for a few days, the UI is now stable and tailored to my taste. Once in a while, I switch to another app: Plato is better at handling huge PDF files.
Another bonus point is that I can mount my ereader as a USB mass-storage and rsync the git repository of my ebooks onto it.
I bought a Kobo Libra about a year ago and it's rock solid although I'm not using any sync features. I turned on the airplane mode on day one. Just works.
I've had three different Kobos (two with touchscreen) and never ran into this issue.
But the Overdrive issues are infuriating, especially when you miss out on a hold from the library and have to get in the queue again. On popular books it can take months. :(
However I'm inclined to ignore anyone who pushes their argument as "I'm doing X and you should too". Tell the good and bad things but don't tell me what to do
The ereader scene is just a disaster that shows the dangers of prioritizing DRM.
I had ereaders for two decades, managed to read about 6 books on them and ultimately have almost nothing to do with related media forms because of the experience which replaced any actual reading routine with jumping through hoops.
I've owned an ereader for about a decade and never felt that I need to jump through any hoops to read a book on it. I've been getting my books from some gal called Anna. Apparently she has a pretty impressive archive.
The Kindle scene is a disaster that shows the dangers of prioritizing DRM. Meanwhile, I'm buying DRM-free books and keeping them in Calibre and reading on KOReader. It's a great experience.
My experience with the Kindle is great, but I mostly use the Kindle Unlimited subscription to read progression fantasy. Good value, easy to use. The quality of the content is very mixed, as any PF fan will tell you, but them's the breaks.
I get the DRM hate but I've had a kindle, a few at this point, for roughly 14 years. I've read over 6 books this year alone. Not sure it's the device if you've only manage to read 6 books in 20 years.
You can get a Kobo Reader and disable internet access to it so it never connects to a server. You can then plug it in to your computer and it shows up as a mass storage device. Then just drop PDFs, ePubs in.
I never liked Calibre, it's weirdly shoddy software, slow as a dog, and the worst UX i've ever seen in a popular app - so I needed something I could just drop my files into.
The dev behind Calibre is a Big Personality, the story was they were more willing to support a private Python 2 fork than spend the time porting Calibre to Python 3 :)
But it still is THE best way to convert books from one format to another and one of the best to fill in metadata in a compatible way.
I do the same thing with a kindle. I've never had it connected to the internet or used any amazon services with it. All my books were just moved over via usb.
The weird thing is how huge Calibre is considering, I'd wager, 90% of people (myself included) just use it to convert books and never touch 1/100th of the tools and functionality in it, not touching on the fact that it's not a shining example of intuitive software. But once you have it setup, using it as a middleman is pretty straightforward and easy.
Is there a simpler conversion tool that does as good of a job? I've literally not looked in a decade plus.
I did this with a pocketbook. I wish I could recommend it strongly, but in fact the USB port is extremely finicky (often can't charge, can't get Calibre to detect it). As it is I can only recommend it as the cheapest ebook reader that's comfortable to read from.
> Amazon recently confirmed that starting May 20, these older models will lose all access to the Kindle Store. While you can technically keep reading books already on the device, the real kicker is the factory reset limitation built into the software. If you ever need to reset your device or try to register it to a new account after the deadline, it becomes a literal paperweight.
is this true though? You can't browse the store on the device, but you can buy and manage your books on amazon.com, including sending them to the kindle; no?
also, i use my kindle to read library books. will that still work?
You won't be able to read library books on it after it resets (which it will eventually) unless you jail break it. My son jail break'd his kindle so I guess its not too hard and you can read library books that way.
No Kindle Unlimited, though, and library apps will probably drop support for the older stuff in time.
Jailbreak on very old Kindles is reasonably straightforward and the fact that Amazon hasn't even put out point releases to stop it (as the do with newer models) is a strong hint that they've just given up on maintaining them. I still have a K3 (Kindle Keyboard) that not only is jailbroken: it runs Tailscale.
Unprotected books, no problem. Anna's Archive + Calibre will keep working just fine.
I got an android based epaper device and installed Libby on it. Overall it is a much better experience than doing the library to Kindle dance. I can just browse my local library's ebook collection on device and immediately open them in one tap.
Battery life standby time isn't nearly as good, but being able to also read Notion pages, review full PDFs, and other benefits from having an actual tablet, make the battery life sacrifice worth it.
I love my kobo I got Claude to SSH into it and stuff. I got it where I can say download the latest blog post from xyz, convert it to a kepub and add it.
The devices were supported for more than a decade. Sure, this forced deprecation isn’t great but it’s still had a longer lifetime than many other devices.
I’ll happily keep reading on my kindle, it’s the most ergonomic way of reading for me especially when traveling. I get that there are other options like Kobo, but I don’t see it as significantly better than the Kindles. And I like the fact that I can also use the iPad and iPhone apps for kindle to read on the go if I don’t have the physical kindle with me.
IIRC, part of the original sales pitch was replacing physical books, for whatever reason one might like to do that. I did it because I was doing a LOT of travel.
I haven't had a job that requires travel in a long time, so looking at it from that perspective, having my library also require some kind of additional device maintenance cycle or whatever really adds a layer of complexity I don't want to deal with, so depending on what options I have and what I'm buying, I'm finding myself these days purchasing physical books more frequently just to avoid the hassle for future me.
One benefit apart from travel that I couldn’t go without is adapting the font size. I have pretty poor eyesight and some physical books were a PITA to read. Especially from bed / bath where I wouldn’t normally wear glasses.
Yeah, my sister bought into the Kindle eco-system early on, but I picked a Sony PRS-505 instead (mostly because it would fit in a Travelsmith shirt pocket) and for a long while, the only ebook which I had "purchased" was Robert Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ which I got w/ a $10 credit for browsing their store on a certain day (which I then got a price-fixing rebate check for which I kind of wish I'd kept...) and it was so rife with errors I had to check out a copy from the library to determine what some of them were. When the Sony ebook store closed down, my "library" was transferred to Kobo's and their copy of that novel was made in a different fashion, or corrected, so was actually readable on the Sony PRS-600 I eventually upgraded to.
Since then, I bought a Kindle Paperwhite, and I've made a game of either getting free e-books when offered on the store, or purchasing books when on sale and I've had sufficient Amazon gift cards from Microsoft Rewards, so that I've not spent "real" money on any virtual books, except for when I've purchased an ebook to go along with a newly published hardcover by an author whose work I feel strongly enough that it merits such doubled purchasing.
I still buy e-books for nonfiction I expect I'll read once, take a few notes on, and then probably never come back to, if I can't easily get them at the library. No need to clutter up my already overflowing bookshelves. For anything else I'm with you – not only do you not have DRM or other bullshit, physical books are still easier to navigate and overall more usable.
(This is absolutely bonkers though – the experience of using an e-reader has basically not gotten better since 2008 when I got my first Kindle. There are still glaringly obvious usability issues which nobody has spent any time innovating on.)
Also Kobo's ecosystem exhibits many of the same DRM problems that Amazon has. The majority of book publishers still require DRM. You get DRM locked copies regardless of if you buy them from Amazon or Kobo (or Google Play Store).
Some of this post just seems that an "Android Authority" only just now realized there are less-forked Android-based e-readers versus Kindle and they feel happier with the Android ecosystem (and its DRM) than Amazon's. To me it feels a bit like a choice between Purple Drazi and Green Drazi. Many of the same problems but a different ascot color.
Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)
Well, I find Whispersync for Kindle to be absolutely irreplaceable.
I have a 40 minute drive to work each way, and I find audiobooks the best way to pass the time. At night if I want to read the same book from my drive, Kindle picks up exactly where I stopped listening. And does the reverse the next morning when I get in the car.
If any else is doing this, I am unaware. But it's AWESOME.
My main complaint is Amazon has discontinued Kindle devices with physical page turn buttons. Whoever made that decision should be fired.
Ah, that’s a very valid use case. I sadly don’t read as much as I’d like to (I only have a couple dozen books to my name, though I’m in my mid 20s.) I can see storage becoming an issue though if one owns hundreds, if not thousands, of books. Not a bad problem to have I suppose!
Other commenters gave good reasons, and here are a few more:
- If you like long books, an e-reader is much lighter than a tome. Not only more portable, but also easier to hold when reading.
- When lying down you don't have to fight the cover 50% of the time. Easy to read one-handed too.
- The new ones are water-resistant.
- You can have multiple books available, in case you switch it up or just finish them quickly.
- Search feature.
- Built-in bookmark.
- Time estimates until end-of-chapter and end-of-book.
- The e-ink screen doesn't feel like a screen. Not really a plus on top of paper books, but just because you mentioned.
I still read physical books when they're gifted or the medium requires it (House of Leaves being the latest example), but otherwise I'm 100% on e-readers. Previously Kindle Paperwhite 6th Gen, and since a few weeks, Kobo Clara BW.
They are very practical for travelling. I love reading physical books, but also read fast and love reading 3-4 books at a time. An e-reader is basically half the weight of 1 book compared to lugging 3 or 4 books in a carry-on.
Looking up words on the fly by just holding your finger on them.
If the book is not written in your native language or you like to read books with unusual vocabulary (e.g. historical books), it's an absolute delight. So far, a concise dictionary like Oxford has worked the best for me, while Wiktionary or similar always came short.
The other is heft and handiness. If you read anything that is larger than a small notebook, an e-book is much more practical. You also don't have to hold it open all the time.
For me:
- Easier access to books in other languages or out of print
- Quick access to a dictionary
- Backlight for reading in bed or in the evening
- Pocketability
- Way cheaper if you read a lot of public domain books (or have a parrot sitting on your shoulder)
That said, I have a jailbroken Kindle, but I am not giving a cent to Amazon. Should it break I'd just get a Kobo.
I share a bed with my wife and I like to read past when she goes to sleep. It's really nice to be able to read in bed with a frontlit device without having to bother with whether I'll accidentally flash my nightlight on her face if I move.
Also, here in Canada Kobos are extremely well integrated with library systems. It's a minor advantage generally, but during covid when libraries were physically closed it was a lifesaver. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I read less, but I read between 60 and 100 books most years so this is a big deal for me.
One of the last physical books I owned was The Three-Body Problem trilogy in a single volume. It was massive, heavy and honestly beautiful. I loved it.
Then I switched to the Kobo Libra Colour. The weight and portability make a huge difference. Having my entire library with me means I am no longer stuck with whatever I decided to bring before leaving home.
The color display is not amazing, but it is good enough for comics. I have been reading things like Attack on Titan and Spider-Man on it. Reading tech books has been great too, especially those with graphs and images.
Text size control is great for anyone with less than perfect vision. I tend to like reading dense non-fiction and the world seems to think that requires itty bitty text.
- Built-in dictionary
- Being able to read anywhere, even when light is not available (on a taxi, for example)
- Can fit it in my pocket
- Less annoying to read while lying down in bed, and the page is automatically marked when I fall asleep
- Adjustable typeface and font size
I mostly use my Kindle to read books from my local library's digital catalog. The Libby app hooks into many (all?) US library systems, so I use my phone to check out a book and it's available immediately to download. This is hugely convenient and feels magical since it doesn't cost anything.
If you use something like an iPad, you can also do all your reading on one device - substack, blogs, books, newsletters, audiobooks etc. You can also just continue reading on your phone at any time if you end up in line, in transit etc. which helps me read more.
Ctrl+F. Highlighting, notes, and bookmarks with the ability to hide them. Reading in a dark room. Adjustable font size. Slim size (that's related to portability but I can also read an 800 page book in my bed without getting my arms tired).
The big problem here is that devices can not be re-registered. It's a mean move from Amazon, and will make it difficult to re-enable extra features. However, those devices have multiple jailbreak methods available, so there's really no loss if you can take that extra step. All books are presumably still available on the kindle app / website, and because you already bought them you can pirate them.
Kindles have the best text rendering (imo), and calibre can be used to sideload books. My PW1 had stellar text rendering. My next kindle, Kindle 10 had a lower PPI but decent text rendering. I now use a PW5 and the text is flawless.
Kindle's UI does suck, though. Very slow and the keyboard is glacial. Still, page turns are zippy and it collects highlights in a central file, which is very handy.
I have an old iPod, which still works fine. But nearly all of its apps no longer work because the servers they connect to don't support it anymore, making it essentially useless.
-The old kindles are great products that last a long time
-I don't expect Amazon to support them forever, but kindasorta bricking them on their way out is a dick move
-Jailbreaking is straightforward but this probably hits older people who are not very tech-savvy the most. Like quite a few others here, I too have an elderly family member who I had to help resolve this
I feel there's gotta be some compromise between letting old electronics age gracefully so they don't occupy landfill and a company's need to support aging products over a long time... though I'm not sure what's a good model.
I'm not buying another Kindle until there's a successor to the Voyage's "Limited Edition Premium Leather Origami Cover." If a competitor wants to lure me over, that is the way.
Amazing that it's 2026 and people who write articles on tech-focused sites are still surprised that they never actually owned the books on their Kindle. Do they also think they own their steam games, or Gmail address?
I'm a fan of the Roku e-readers. Affordable, hackable, and you can add your own books just by plugging it into your computer.
Rakuten.. a combo. Kobo the brand was sold to Rakuten (close to Roku) in 2012 after 3 short years. They also own Viber (same name - a popular global secure messaging platform that isn't owned by Meta) and ebates (renamed - a cashback platform). Amongst various other Rakuten branded things
Sure you can, just get an older one. I'm very happy with my jailbroken Kindle 4 running KOReader. AFAIK re-registering won't brick it, you can still sideload just fine.
We should be normalizing a separation of device and ecosystem. These are for consuming books, it's not an awful inconvenience to sideload every 19 hours of consumption to queue up the next read.
I have several Kindles for me and my kids, I have never bought a book on the Amazon store, instead I side load everything. Amazon basically subsidized a cheap and tough e-reader assuming it would drive everyone to the store, which I actively do not engage with. If it gets bricked in 10 years, I still think it would be worth it.
Again, this is after 13 years, so the subsidized price is worth it for me (personally) for at least 13 years of use. In the original article it compares it to kobo and says “Meanwhile, when you buy a Kobo, you are buying a tool that can be maintained for a decade or more”, so 13 years either way. That said, I don’t like Kindles approach, this is purely a cost benefit calculation and Amazon subsidizing the hardware makes it worth it (for me). I only use ereaders for reading and don’t want/need any more features.
I'm not aware of it, so unless they locked new Kindle from copying books through USB and working offline I'm not understanding what is this uproar about.
I've got my Kindle for free, so are my books copied there in last 15 years...
I switched to the Kobo ecosystem about a year and a half ago and have been pretty happy. While the book availability and store aren't at complete parity, I've only had one situation where I couldnt get the book I wanted and it was available on the Amazon store (and I read a lot of books).
Side tangent: I’m the developer of Kindle Comic Converter. Kindle updates 5.19.2+ have completely broken the sideloaded manga reader with bugs like huge margins, pages being on the wrong side in 2 page landscape mode, no panel view, no % read tracker, and laggy page turns. I’ve documented the problems here and the first report was 60 days ago. https://youtu.be/Eo6K7omlE7g
And I haven’t even touched all the problems with normal sideloaded books like broken embedded/publisher fonts.
And the 11th gen seems to have the final update be 5.19.2 so there is no hope of future fixes.
Kindle settings > help > contact us > email/call if you want to voice complaints.
Every year or so, I look into alternative to my Paperwhite, which has been in "airplane mode" since I bought it. So far, nothing else seems to be quite up to the level of my existing device for my use case, let alone better.
It's possible I needed to log into Amazon in 2016 and 2020 when I bought my two Paperwhites, but I haven't needed to do so again since, so I'm not sure this will affect me at all. If it does, I'll have to check my notes for what was closest last year when I last checked.
I use one because of kindle unlimited, it's nice to have a big selection of books I can just hit 'read' on right on the kindle store.
I don't know if the alternative e-readers have an equivalent store? Tracking down epub files on my PC then transferring to the device multiple times a week sounds a bit frustrating as an alternative.
Also they support kindles for a long time, my kindle oasis from 2016 that I bought used still is supported, and the things battery also somehow is still in good shape.
Kobo has an equivalent to Kindle Unlimited (as well as a good store). It also integrates directly with Overdrive so you can download free library books directly to your device. I recently switched to one and it's superior in just about every way.
I'm still using a Kindle Oasis (and bought a couple of unopened used ones on eBay). I need the physical page turn buttons so Amazon has basically abandoned me. Trying out the Boox and Kobo readers I was immediately struck by their leggy and unresponsive UI (and this is saying something, coming from the kindle, which is already pretty laggy). I used a Nook in a demo and was impressed, but I'm leery of buying the ereader equivalent of a Zune.
Have things improved since the last time I checked in? I really hate so much about the kindle and its ecosystem but it seems to be the best out there.
Either I've gotten so used to lagginess on the Kobo that I don't notice it anymore, or it no longer is a problem. It seems to turn pages just fine, which is the only place I'm concerned about performance. I've got a Clara BW, so no page turn buttons (they make the device bigger than I liked).
Amazon had recently closed their Android App Store as well. Practically all apps I had ever installed from the app store, including paid ones, have stopped working. Seems like Apps installed from their store had some internal dependence on the store app itself.
Always loved to have an e-ink reader but the walled gardens always made it so hard. Until I bought the xteink x4, as skeptical as I could be. What a great little device. https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4
I love mine. I've owned a Kindle Paperwhite and a Boox Note 4+ but I never really got into the habit of reading much on them. The Note is great for notetaking, but the Kindle is too big to bring with me everywhere.
The X4 is so small that I can throw it in my pocket and read a page or two when I'm waiting for something instead of doomscolling on my phone. I love that little thing. I've read two books since 3/27 and I'm halfway through my 3rd book.
If you don't like this, physical books are wonderful.
Unpopular here but: This won't bother non-techies who aren't religiously against DRM. They love their kindles, old ones should be thrown away and they will buy a new one (with cool new features like blue light blocking mode).
Has anyone done any interesting work on transflective / reflective frontlit LCD panels? It seems like this is rife for progress; LCDs can achieve densities and response rates that are beyond the reach of any eink device, and only the lack of good contrast stands in the way.
Fujitsu used to offer them --- their Stylistic ST-4110 was my favourite device for a very long while, used as for maps/navigation as well as an ebook reader in addition to being my main computer --- quite miss it and the simplicity of a single (stylus-equipped/daylight-viewable) device, as opposed to the ménagerie which I currently use (Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Book 3 Pro 360, Kindle Scribe Coloursoft, Wacom One attached to MacBook)
I don't understand. Will they stop working with Calibre or not?
Incidentally, I hope there are alternative readers that are also just readers. No Android no "applications". I like being able to go on holiday without worrying about charging the ebook reader.
I've had so many problems with ereaders that I've just gone back to using paper books, they have a better UX and none of the issues. I love my reMarkable tablet, but I definitely do NOT use it as an ereader and have no interest in doing so.
When kindle shutted down its service in China, it has already become a joke. You just own a e-ink screen for every penny you spent on it, no matter on the device or the books
I got a Kindle Oasis in 2018 and it was a perfect device for me. Cellular connectivity, Bluetooth support for audiobooks, and synchronization.
I could start reading on my phone, then transition to listening in my car, and then pick up reading on Kindle. And it worked well in a literal airplane. I didn't have to faff about with WiFi passwords to sync to the latest page, thanks to the cellular connectivity.
And now Kindle devices lost cellular (why?!?), lost physical keys (facepalm), and are getting worse and worse UI/UX-wise.
I only read ebook when I don't have access to my physical books. When I do read ebooks, I prefer it on my XTeink X4. It doesn't have the conveniences that Kindle and other similar divices offer but it works for me.
I think the most important criteria with a reader (aside from hardware quality) is whether you're comfortable going outside the manufacturer's store to buy DRM-free books, or at least ones that can be liberated from DRM for future proofing. Calibre still speaks the format of these old Kindles, so they're usable, I expect that will continue to be the case for Kindles. If format conversion is too annoying to deal with then it's better to read on a general purpose iOS or Android tablet. I have a Boox NA4C and it's ok, nice hardware, but I have noticed the constant phoning home and am annoyed by the GPL issues (not that I expected a Chinese Android device maker to be fulfilling their open source obligations). For that reason and others I've mostly come around to just reading on a phone and tablet with non-eink screens.
Never buy another Kindle? I keep mine in airplane mode all the time and sideload all the books/papers I want to read. It works practically just as well as when I bought it. Why wouldn't I buy another? If Amazon makes a Kindle with color at 300 PPI, I will.
Sure, proper EPUB support would be nice, but if I need that I can jailbreak and install Koreader.
If there's another device with comparable hardware/software/battery, I'd consider it. AFAIK, Kindle still has the best standby battery life.
If you use Anna's for everything, essentially all of the available e-readers work just fine as a usb-stick-with-a-screen-attached. None of them in my experience handle PDFs well, but I'm sure there are large format ones that do better.
I have a kindle, but have never used any of the amazon specific functionality and don't plan on it. Stays permanently in airplane mode. I have no complaints and find the software more "refined" but not exceptional. I just convert everything to a mobi file.
My partner has a kobo and it seems just as serviceable. Out of the box it supports more file types, but it can be iffy on formatting sometimes, so I've had to fiddle with some stuff in Calibre to make stuff display nicely. I'm sure sticking to epubs would resolve that issue though.
TBH, I find all of the mass market e-readers to all have pretty comparable displays. I used to use a 20 year old kindle and don't find newer ones wildly better. The tech seems pretty stagnant. You're usually picking between things like backlights or light-temp now.
I bought a kobo years ago, never updated it, never connected it to wifi, never bought a book for it, just download epubs and write them to it via calibre
“I’ve carried a Kindle in my bag for over a decade. Through every hardware iteration, from the physical keyboard right up to the latest Paperwhite, a Kindle has been with me everywhere”
Wow. I got a kindle keyboard in 2012? It gave out about 4 years ago when I got a PocketBook Touch HD3, which has been great these last 4 years. I think it’s just insane that some people buy all the generations. What a waste.
I run any kind of android app on my boox, firefox, wikipedia, claude etc... You can install also google keyboard and enable swipe typing, it works really well. Only thing I am dissatisfied is the casing. It can break easily if you are a bit careless, unless you use its hardcover.
Yes definitely. I just followed the steps over at https://kindlemodding.org/ and got my Paperwhite running beautifully and with more customization than ever.
With Kobo devices still available I don’t know why anyone was buying Kindles in the first place.
Kobo links with Overdrive which means you can borrow ebooks from your local library for free, and you can transfer books of a variety of formats openly into the device.
Slightly off topic, but I was discussing with my wife getting a kindle for my son (8) recently.
Any recommendations for alternatives? I have no problem using calibre to convert the books, and manually transfer from my PC. It just needs to read books.
I've always told people, Kindles are ereaders seeming designed by people who hate books.
The renderer is atrocious and is holding back the entire industry, much like IE6's crappy renderer and monopoly on users held the entire web back a decade. Browsers (and thus ebooks, which are just HTML/CSS) can now do pretty decent typography, but Amazon inexplicably refuses to get on board with epub.
Their file formats are equally garbage. Mobi, a format that has hardly changed since circa the year 2005, was still in active use until just recently. Their other proprietary formats are confusing in feature set and are opaque to create. The official tool to create Amazon ebooks only runs on Windows![1]
Kindles still can't natively read epubs, but since they accept epubs via email, their customers get confused and email me about it. (Epubs sent via email are quietly convert to Amazon's propriety format, meaning all bets are off on the result. Good luck, publisher!)
I always tell people, buy literally any other ereader.
[1] Calibre can also create them but it's reverse-engineering and not the official implementation.
Yes, of course, unsupported also means it stops gettng anti-jailbreaking updates as well. I meant Amazon could atone for desupporting these devices by releasing an official unlock, like how Meta did for the Oculus Go.
Not true. The books on my shelves constantly disappointed me every time I moved or went on a more than weekend long vacation. I ditched my fairly large and expensive to acquire collection of printed books about a decade ago and don't regret it a single bit. Paper is heavy and annoying to move around in a way that a Kindle simply isn't.
I have old Kindles that Amazon disabled from downloading new books. They are trying to force me to buy new Kindles, but I just use the Kindle reader app for my PC. Anyone can recommend an alternative to Kindle. Please let me know.
I went through this migration last year. A few things that helped:
Calibre is the escape hatch. Converts everything to EPUB. Even if you don't use it day-to-day, it's the best tool for getting your library out of Amazon's format.
Public domain catalogs are huge now. Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, Gutenberg - tens of thousands of well-formatted free EPUBs. Most people don't realize how much is out there.
For actually reading on macOS/iOS, I ended up on BookShelves (https://getbookshelves.app) after trying a few options. Native app, reads EPUB and comics, has Calibre wireless sync, and browses those public domain catalogs directly. Books are just files on your device - no account, no cloud lock-in.
Honestly the hardest part was realizing how much of my library I'd been renting rather than owning.
If you're even the slightest bit tech savvy you can find a DRM stripping utility for Calibre. Apprentice Alf is long retired, but a fork of that DeDRM still is maintained
Newer Kindle books published in the last few years require more than the Calibre plugin. Amazon is tightening the loop.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful...
Life is too short and my reading backlog too large for me to spend any time, money, or effort whatsoever on DRMed books.
There are enough copyright‐expired and copyrighted‐but‐DRM‐free books to keep me fully occupied in perpetuity.
It never worked with the few books I got from Amazon, because I could not get them anywhere else. I usually only buy epub/pdf.
I just tried this _today_ and its not easy, you need DeDRM and at least one or two other utilities. I have yet to convert a single book.
I've been using my 2012 Paperwhite Kindle with Calibre and the experience is honestly great. The only thing I miss from the Amazon shut down is Wikipedia lookup and highlight/note syncing. Otherwise, I've steered clear of Amazon DRM for a long time so I didn't really care because I was already sideloading books with Calibre.
Thanks for sharing Bookshelves. It’s great.
[flagged]
What exactly in the process doesn't make sense?
Unless the comment has been edited, it does make sense (other than the fact it's intention might just be an ad for BookShelves reader):
- Use Calibre to cross-convert books.
- Leverage public domain ebook catalogs: Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, Gutenberg.
- For on-device reading BookShelves app might be an option, with no cloud lock-in.
I can understand why one would want to move from Kindle to another device, but this article starts by complaining that support is being dropped for devices from before 2013. I can even understand being upset by this, but I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. Could be. But I sure wouldn't count on it.
Usually an unsupported device stops getting new functionality and security fixes. The unsupported Kindles lose existing functionality, i.e. the ability to add books. Not quite bricked unlike, say, Sonos, but you are limited to the books y already downloaded to them.
This is inherent to DRM, and the reason why I would never have considered buying one in the first place. The eReader I have is a PocketBook Versa. Same price as a Kindle, extensible using microSD and I can add my non-DRM books however I want. Fortunately, Apple Books ePub FairPlay DRM is fairly easy to remove, so that's where I buy them.
Wait, wut? How would they stop me from adding new book to my kindle? I can just plug into USB and load directly right?
Among other things, if you become logged out of the device or it's reset you will no longer be able to login with an amazon account ( which is required ) to use the device
You can use the Kindle without an Amazon account if you're fine with loading all your books over USB. It will give you a nag pop-up telling you to log in each time you go to the main menu, but the pop-up doesn't show up while you're in a book so it's not a big deal.
What is your point? That's still a major loss of functionality.
I’ve owned three Kindles and never used an Amazon account on any of them.
Correct. It’s the ability to download books directly onto the device from Amazon that is being removed.
Often big company drm software to read encrypted/drm files will have a time limit on it, where it will stop working if not updated - because they require knowing the current date. This is how they could block it.
Dvd players didn't need to know the date. The new world of constantly evolving drm schemes falls into this world, making it east to eol devices if not updated
Well, I don't have a Kindle, so I can't verify this, but I am basing this from reporting:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98k91yy4z4o
"The move will mean owners of older Kindles, including its earliest models such as the Kindle Touch and some Kindle Fire tablets, will be unable to download new e-books."
For a more tech-oriented site, according to Ars Technica Amazon removed the ability to upload over USB:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/starting-in-may-pre-...
"Previously, owners of old Kindles could have worked around this loss of functionality by downloading books locally and transferring them via USB. But Amazon removed the ability to download books to a PC or Mac in February of 2025."
I don't like to brag "I told you so" but I saw this coming 16 years ago:
https://blog.majid.info/why-i-will-never-buy-a-kindle/
Nothing you've quoted is wrong per se, but it's also not the full story.
Amazon removed the ability to download files from them to your computer. And they will soon be removing the ability to download files from them directly to older kindle devices. You can still download a MOBI or EPUB from anywhere else online (though I think some older kindles don't support EPUB) and transfer it via USB, and will still be able to after they EOL those older devices.
Even new Kindles don't support EPUB, per-se. The Send-to-Kindle service started supporting EPUB, and converts them to AZW3 or KFX for actual delivery to your Kindle.
But you cannot just USB an EPUB onto your Kindle without any conversion process. (Calibre does make it very simple, though.)
Does anyone know if the send to kindle getting sunsetted as well?
Interesting. Once again, I don't have a Kindle so I can't verify any of this. I do have a PocketBook Versa with stock firmware and a M5Stack Paper S3 running Crosspoint Reader, but hardly use either as I prefer reading on LCD or OLED tablets. The only formats I care about are DRM-free ePub and PDF.
Totally fair. I don't read much on Kindles either (mostly on my OLED phone). There's just a lot of dis/misinformation around these deprecations that I feel should be corrected. I worked on Kindles earlier in my career and still have a soft spot in my heart for them.
No you can't do that on a kindle. They have a "send to kindle" feature that allows you to add non-Amazon purchased ebooks to your library. But that requires support from the backend (and an internet connection).
I'm assuming send to kindle will no longer be supported on these older devices.
You can send books to your kindle over USB, and I do that all the time for larger books that are above the size limit on the email system.
The big problem is that Amazon no longer allows you to download books from their site to your desktop, so you have no way to actually get a purchased book and send it to the kindle even over USB. However, if you buy non-DRM books from other book sellers you won't have this problem.
They block you from doing this if you're not logged in (as I discovered after wiping and rooting one to give to a friend recently).
As evidence, note that instructions for rooting them requires the device to be registered - this is because it won't be accessible over USB until you do so: https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/WinterBreak/
So if you can't log in...
Not a thing on my e-ink kindle, although it is a decade old by now.
> The big problem is that Amazon no longer allows you to download books from their site to your desktop
I've bought a number of books on Kindle that were explicitly marked as being sold without DRM. Does this mean I've lost access to any DRM-free downloads that I haven't already backed up?
If you bought them from Amazon, you won't be able to get them after the cutoff date directly to that Kindle via WiFi. You may not be able to get them in a format that old Kindles can read at all.
Download and back them up now. Or just pirate them if you need them later.
The entire Kindle store system will cease working on older Kindles after the cutoff. Still works as a reader, but expect to lose things like location sync across devices.
I don't buy from Amazon, I don't turn on WiFi on my Kindle because it eats battery life, I always travel with a laptop, and I only use it to read outdoors. So I really don't care. It's my beach book. At home, I'd rather read on my iPad.
Oh, and FWIW, you can install Tailscale to a jailbroken Kindle and Taildrop files to it over WiFi, if it can read the format (for the old ones being discussed, that's mobi or azw3).
I have a Kindle that took a fall about 8 years ago and the wifi has never worked since then. I've been able to load books onto it using USB with no issues.
> Not quite bricked unlike, say, Sonos
Sonos backed down on the bricking offer, you did still got the discount for a new product but didn't have to effectively destroy the old one - it's just unsupported by any new features.
Also in case of reset, you cannot activate your kindle anymore
I feel the same way. To be honest I'm on my third kindle, their life-span seems to be about five years for me.
I don't love having to replace them, but paying €120 every five years is probably worth it. I mean that's €2/month, and I have a huge library of books which I load via calibre.
I read daily, on the bus to work, at home in bed, and while there are "more free" ereaders I've become accustomed to the kindle and have no complaints. If I were not so clumsy they'd last longer, so that's on me.
My physical library is pretty big, but being able to carry 50+ books at all times? And have a battery life of a few weeks? (I stay in airplane mode, as I transfer books via the USB cable). It's hard to complain.
Same boat as you, I'm on my second kindle in 10 years. Absolutely love the device and the convenience of reading on it. Also have a large physical library that I still add to occasionally (esp in relation to the space I have in Condo buildings), but reading on my kindle is my go-to choice.
Let me ask to what exactly have you been accustomed? Reading as such doesn't seem to be different on pretty much any e-reader.
I've become used to the idea of having 10+ books in my bag at a time, instead of having to choose which physical ones to pack.
Plus over the years I've gotten very familiar with the UI of the kindles, they're comfortable to hold and work in a way that feels natural and no-effort.
The Kobo Glo, released in 2012, is still getting updates to the latest Kobo firmware version.
In fact all Kobo e-ink devices, except the Kobo Mini, wifi, and the original one, are still getting firmware updates.
Their android-based tablets with IPS screens are all discontinued though (as far as I am aware).
This is more than Amazon ever did. They haven't updated the firmware on some of their devices that are officially "supported" in years.
Not to mention that those devices all support regular EPUBs out of the box, and so you can still put new content on them today.
Of course, you'll get a bit more out of them if you convert your EPUBs to KEPUBs with Kepubify[0], but the point remains that Kobos are supplemented by their cloud/connected features, not inherently dependent on them.
0: https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/
I don’t understand why anyone would choose a Kindle over the Kobo range of devices.
When I bought the Kobo Clara it was also a significantly better device purely on hardware specs. It was slightly more expensive, but that’s more than paid for by how long it’s already lasted me, whereas my spouse’s kindle (bought before we discovered Kobo), is already e-waste.
Kobo has also officially tied up with iFixit to provide official fixing guides and parts, allowing for relatively inexpensive hardware repair (to be fair, the battery replacement process I went through my device was quite annoying due to the waterproofing layer, but it worked, and my device is much older than their iFixit partnership, so hopefully the newer devices have repairability more in mind).
Kobo also integrates with public libraries via Overdrive
It’s amazing to check out a book from your library and have it sync to your kobo, all paid for with your library card
You literally would have to pay me to go back to a Kindle
Support here is pretty loose. These devices were already not supported in the traditional sense. They were not getting firmware updates, they were just allowed to continue using Amazon's DRM scheme and connect to the store.
AFAIK it's still possible to authorize ancient supported ePub readers with Adobe Digital Editions and load up DRMed books from providers like Google Play even with devices like the Sony PRS-505 (e.g,https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/reader-digital-book...), despite them exiting the market over a decade ago. Kobo also has continued providing firmware updates to devices from 2011, and even their unsupported devices can still load books via ADE or the Kobo Desktop App.
> I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years.
I don't have that faith either, but it still irks me when good hardware has to get chucked for software reasons. And this goes double for when those software reasons are about stupid-ass DRM.
But in this particular instance I don't consider it to be that bad for me personally, since I don't rely on being able to access Amazon DRM books. But a lot of perfectly working devices are going to get landfilled for this.
My typewriter has been successfully serviced 45 years after being produced.
True.
I would point out that in 45 years ago, in 1981, the typewriter as a product was over 100 years old (first sold 1874). There was a lot of time to standardize by 1981. And there probably haven't been a lot of serviceable pre-1900s typewriters for quite a while.
The first Kindle came out in 2007. Who knows what an e-reader will be like in 2107?
I got it. And I've played a 1905 Martin and you can still plug a 1950s telecaster into a 1950s amp in turn plugged into wall power and everything works. Just saying, that is not the consumer electronics world in 2026.
The amp would only be working if it had repairs multiple times by now though. Capacitors don't last 75 years, and tubes last much shorter than capacitors.
A replacement set of tubes for a 1950s Fender amp costs $200-$400 today, just for parts. A lot more than a new Kindle. A Kindle might even be less e-waste than a set of tubes too.
What is the support burden? It needs to be able to sync with your ebook library. Thats it.
Kindles aren't like phones and computers, you dont need an upgrade every few years because software consumes the latest hardware. They just open epub files.
True, but most manufacturers don't go out of their way to break their old devices. Neglect is one thing, this feels more like theft.
What a shame that iPhone 6 cannot install the latest apps from App Store. This is robbery from Apple.
But iPhone 6 can still download whatever version supported by the latest iOS version on the phone, right?
That catalog is diminishing if not almost completely gone. Even if an app exists, unless it is (mostly) local, chances are that it's so old that it cannot talk to the remote server using the correct API. For mainstream apps, if it launches at all, many will immediately tell you to upgrade to a newer version otherwise it won't work.
There's a world of difference between software dependencies going out of date between many releases and a company deliberately disabling older devices from downloading static ebook files instead of maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility.
> maintaining some sort of basic backward compatibility
Sounds easy for you to type that out on a forum without having to maintain a two decade old stack, which probably has tons of "software dependencies going out of date"
Not the same thing. Those old devices are essentially being bricked. You will no longer be able to sign into them.
Amazon is offering a 20% discount to owners of those devices to switch to any other modern kindle.
Buy something that runs the latest LineageOS, and use the Kindle app.
If you want greater security, substitute Graphene for Lineage.
These will not be e-ink displays, but the longevity is perhaps the longest available from independent vendors.
If you choose non-e-ink displays, than the best longevity will be for GNU/Linux devices like Librem 11.
They likely won't support the Kindle app, however, and the users won't be able to access the books they paid for but don't really own thanks to DRM.
reMarkable is doing a decent job, their first generation device launched in 2017. Still getting updates. It is discontinued for sale, but there is no reason to believe reMarkable will stop updating their other devices if they're _still_ updating a device they don't even sell anymore.
On top of that, their aftermarket and open source situation is pretty good.
They're not ideal e-readers though, but if you're in the market for a good e-ink device with long-term support and that works well with calibre? Might be worth a look.
until the software compatibility with the older model compromises the newer models. Kudos for them for still updating a device no longer on sale, but Apple does the same, until it doesn't. The fact that they are still updating the first generation today does not mean they will do so tomorrow.
That said, remarkable are great devices as well.
I can still read my decade old books
What's also not mentioned is that the discontinued devices don't support KFX.
KFX is the modern kindle format, AZW meanwhile is heavily PDF-based. KFX was designed ground-up by Amazon, supports every modern feature they could think of, and presumably couldn't be backported to 2013 and earlier Kindles; AZW meanwhile was basically a wrapper around a subset of PDF. KFX is a complete redo, notable enough it's what "Enhanced Typesetting" on every Kindle product page means, not a small DRM upgrade.
By doing this, all authors will soon receive guarantees that they will have the full KFX feature set when designing eBooks, and won't break AZW by accident. Trying to point this out though to the "it's about DRM" or "it's about obsolescence" crowd will get you downvoted to oblivion before the truth is even considered (speaking from experience, -4 when I dared suggest legitimate reasons exist) and is a prime example of echo chambers and deeply ingrained bias on this forum.
The original AZW format was MOBI-based, not PDF-based. MOBI originally from a company called MobiPocket, which Amazon eventually acquired, was built to be an ePub competitor and like ePub was an HTML and JS-based solution, but in a somewhat different, proprietary DRM-friendlier container format. (ePub is "just" a ZIP file, with the DRM applied sometimes inside the container rather than outside it.)
MOBI stopped keeping up with ePub standards and standard features, in part because Amazon acquired MobiPocket. The KFX is just ePub with a new proprietary DRM container around the ZIP file that is ePub's container.
The 2013 boundary is also the "supports ePUB files directly without a conversion process" boundary in Amazon's kindle OS. It's not just useful to know for book file authors, but as a consumer it becomes useful for a quick "Can I buy a standards compliant DRM-free EPUBs such as from sites like DriveThruFiction and just send them to my Kindle with no other steps?"
No Kindle supports ePub natively. Amazon converts ePub to a supported format when you use the send to kindle email service. If you just load the book on over USB it won't work.
Every kindle that supports the new format (Kindle devices since 2013 with latest OS upgraded) support loading non-DRM ePubs directly over USB. There's no conversion anymore. (I've done this.)
Amazon's not going to openly advertise that this deprecation is also the line in the sand where "non-DRM ePub just works", but that's what has happened.
Of course one of the sadder problems with the ePub ecosystem is that it uses the same file extension for DRM contained and non-DRM contained ePubs. At a glance it isn't easy to tell if an ePub is not DRMed. Amazon does not support any of the existing ePub DRM schemes. Their own KFX DRM is very unique and proprietary and doesn't play nice with ePub DRM "standards". You can't load DRMed ePubs over USB, those don't work. Sometimes that gives an impression still that "Amazon does not support ePubs natively", but that's the nature of DRM and how much DRM hurts the entire ebook industry in every direction.
Are you sure about that? Even Amazon's own sales page state: "Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion; Audible audio format (AAX). Learn more about supported file types for personal documents." implying that ePub only works through conversion. They don't support DRMed ePubs through conversion either so it's a bit odd they say that instead of including it natively.
As I said, anecdotally I've already done it. Amazon only just enabled the PC "Send to Kindle" to support ePub directly instead of the old silly work around of rename the .epub to .kfx (and no other change). They've been very bad at keeping their list of formats up to date in their own documentation. Some of that perhaps because they don't want it to be so obvious and it is intentional obfuscation (to keep people using their store rather than going elsewhere for books), some of that because a lot of their kindle documentation seems to be in a "isn't broke, don't fix it" frozen state for years at time. You'll also note that the text you found doesn't mention "Kindle Format 10 (KFX)" at all and also you might notice that TXT and PDF are mentioned on both sides of that text as both "natively" and "through conversion" which seems to imply the original text was from the era when they were converted and they were added to the "natively" side later without remembering to clean up the other side. (They both have native support today.)
TXT and PDF are on both sides because Amazon will convert them to the appropriate Amazon format if you use send to kindle. TXT has always been natively supported on Kindle. As fair as Amazon is concerned, KFX is an internal format only for their use so there's no need to list it. When Amazon added ePub conversion officially KFX had already existed for over half a decade.
Your anecdote also seems to be the only instance of it working natively. Keep in mind Calibre will autoconvert for you.
I was curious and just tested this with directly putting an ePub on my Kindle and it did not work.
I also tried renaming the ePub to a .kfx and it still did not work.
I have also been unable to make this work. I don't know what WorldMaker is doing differently.
Having Calibre auto-convert it and not realize I guess.
AZW is clearly not PDF based. Try opening an actual PDF on a Kindle and compare the experience.
I had a 12y old Paperwhite 2gen and have an 11th gen one.
PDF were just not meant to be viewed on the old one, but the 11th gen handles them surprisingly well.
I don't follow the logic here. Users of old devices aren't asking for new features, they're merely asking for their devices not to be bricked. If an author wants to design against a new set of features they can do that, and that book will not be available on older hardware. Just like, if you want to build an Android app against a newer version you can do that without forcing every human being to replace their phone.
The old kindles can still read all previously downloaded content. Amazon's warning is literally exactly that - you can't download new books or redownload old books (i.e. AZW versions).
They are bricking the devices and not allowing them to log back into the service if they ever log out. All they had to do was not allow them to access / purchase from the store rather than keeping them from logging in.
but that has nothing to do with what you just said. How would being able to continue to download, or purchase, old books affect the ability of authors to create books to new standards going forward? It's not like me being able to still buy an ebook version made in 2015 on my device from 2012 going to interfere with you publishing a book in 2026. That's just bricking the device in case the user ever has to reset their device or has not downloaded their library.
It complicates the Store UX, too, if they have to add "This book is/is not supported by your device" warnings to every book which also needs to know which device you are intending. With the average kindle owner often buying books directly from Amazon.com rather than the on-device Store and often having 2+ devices, they'd possibly need an exponential number of those warnings ("This book is supported by your Kindle Oasis and Kindle Paperwhite C, but not your Kindle Paperwhite B or Kindle Paperwhite A").
Also, maybe the publisher of that book in 2015 wants to upgrade to new ebook features for that book in 2026, for instance they want to add the physical book's original illustrations now that Kindle finally supports more illustrations. Does Amazon have to keep both of the 2015 and 2026 versions of the book depending on which device the user wants to use? How confused is the user when some of their devices have lovely illustrations and others don't? Should the user be able to choose to read the 2015 version of the file even on devices that support the 2026 version because they hate the book's illustrations and find them distracting?
(That gets into a larger discussion that Amazon has always preferred updating books in place on kindles with later editions as they are published, which archivists hate especially because the kindle doesn't have a great "edition version number" to rely on to track for when Amazon has delivered an update to a file, but which often consumers prefer because typos slowly disappear and books subtly become better than the last time you read them, presuming the Publisher isn't doing some drastic bait and switch and it focused only on "plussing" the book.)
Unfortunately I’ve found the majority of “authors” on Amazon these days for new books are just AI slop. And I think it’s only going to get worse
and another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad.
I read a moderate amount I'd say, about 2 weeks average for a book, and I was using a very old and very beat-up but still functioning 4th gen Kindle until recently.
However, I woke up from my stupor when Micro$oft's eBook store closed and purged their library from under everybodies butts. Giving Amazon complete control over my library is a horrible thought, so I'm out.
I am now a happy Boox Go 10.3 + BookFusion user. Crisp screen, great battery life, full android with play store underneath. It syncs to my phone, has most of the bells and whistles I need in terms of reading, and it supports writing handwritten notes (albeit not onto the ebook itself; that's apparently too sci-fi even for 2026), and Bookfusion can sync notes into Obisidian vaults via an Obsidian plugin. I feel in control. I buy books from alternative sites with either no DRM to begin with, or where I'm confident I can remove it. Bookfusion costs me 20EUR a year.
I'm fairly happy with my setup.
EDIT: yes, I'm aware Boox are not the good guys in this story. I have not signed up to any of their services - the device is perfectly usable without that. I turned their book shop off immediately, and I do monitor+block the Chinese IPs it's trying to reach on my router.
Note that Boox does not release the sources for the GPL software they redistribute.
Its obsolete anyway.
In my view the death of the eReader is just the price fixing on ebooks -- that ebooks are sold at par with at a premium to physical books still bothers me, and I think is responsible for the fact that the Kindle is dying -- Amazon can't move enough ebooks at these price levels to be worth investing anything in interested new hardware.
Is the Kindle dying? A cursory check suggests otherwise. Checking the sources on the "Sales" section of Wikipedia, they sold $5bn of devices in 2014 [0], and then hit a decade-long high in 2024 [1]. Now that's much to go on, and could easily have been worded carefully to imply things that aren't true. But at worst it seems like Kindle sales are doing fine. At a ballpark of $200/device, and assuming 2024 is as low as 2014, that means they sold a ballpark of 25 million devices in 2024. The percent of people reading ebooks annually is also increasing [2] (albeit slowly; arguably it's actually flat, but that's still not dying).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle#Sales
[0] https://allthingsd.com/20130812/amazon-to-sell-4-5-billion-w...
[1] https://tech.yahoo.com/phones/articles/amazon-unveils-kindle...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/01/06/three-in-...
Edit: also MSRP on ebooks is lower than for print versions (very roughly 50%, based on a couple randomly checked books)
This is a mea culpa on my part -- looks like the situation here has improved*.
I pretty much only buy ebooks now and the prices have been stable, but apparently print prices have been shooting up so the situation has now been corrected.
* improved in the ratio of ebook price to physical book price; ebook prices are still too high but that's just me complaining about how a quarter used to buy a loaf of bread or whatever.
It's hard to evaluate the cost of a ebook vs physical book without knowing the cut that the author and publisher get of the sales price.
Sure you can.
An ebook has zero cost of distribution and no middlemen.
A physical book has to be typeset, printed, shipped to stores, shipped to customers, marketed in store, etc etc etc.
If a physical book is sold for $10 at least half that is printing, distribution and retail.
Like the GP, the price fixing of ebooks at the Dane price as physical books mothers me as well, particularly because physical books can be sold, lent or given away.
The exact same thing happened when CDs launched. They were cheaper to produce than vinyl or cassette very quickly but they sold at a premium for no reason at all.
>> An ebook has zero cost of distribution and no middlemen.
100% incorrect.
ebooks still:
- Have to be edited, proof read and formatted properly.
- Have to have a cover design.
- Unless you're distributing on your own website (which is uber rare), you still need to pay for platform fees and retailer costs for distribution.
- Marketing and tech support which is the same for any book, regardless of what platform its sold on.
These are all fixed costs not per-unit costs. If you sell 10,000 ebooks or 10 million ebooks, the costs are basically the same.
And book themselves are 500k-5MB in size typically, which is a single HTTP request, basically. Actual costs of storage and distribution are basically zero (per unit). And sure 10M books is more traffic than 10k books but we're talking $0.10/GB or less in baseline traffic. This is like Cloudfare free tier levels of traffic. And while the traffic costs do scale, it's completely dwarfed by the amortization of fixed costs like editing, formatting and cover design.
As for tech support, it's not the same. Publishers have to handle returns from retailers. Ebooks don't. It's no more complicated than revoking a key and the actual process of requesting a refund requires no human intervention either.
This really feels like I made some blanket statement than offended your sensibilities so you decided to argue without knowing why, if I'm being honest.
>> This really feels like I made some blanket statement than offended your sensibilities so you decided to argue without knowing why, if I'm being honest.
Because you said this:
"An ebook has zero cost of distribution and no middlemen."
and then said this:
"These are all fixed costs not per-unit costs."
Which are two different arguments.
This really feels like you made two different arguments, then I offended your sensibilities by pointing it out, so you decided to argue without knowing why, if I'm being honest.
[dead]
I, too, was once naive and thought that the price of goods is largely determined by the cost of production.
But as anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows, the price is based on what people are willing to pay for it. The cost of production merely dictates whether it is viable to sell in the market.
If most people are willing to pay $10 for an ebook, when the hardcopy is also $10, then $10 is what they'll sell it for.
You might argue that the convenience of an ebook would make people willing to pay more
Whatever the rationale: People will pay what people are willing to pay. If the price is too high, competition should bring it down. The price clearly wasn't too high.
When I purchase a book, I decide how much I'll pay based on what the book will do for me. I'll get the same entertainment/info whether it is printed or electronic. For some types of books I prefer printed, so I won't pay much for the ebook. For fiction, I prefer electronic (already have too many physical books in the house), so I'll happily pay for it.
Of course, smart people just use libraries :-)
Sure, it's easy to evaluate anything if you make up plausible-sounding numbers about it.
The costs of printing and retail are definitely less than half the sales price: https://www.davidderrico.com/cost-breakdowns-e-books-vs-prin... Publishers say it's 10%; Derrico thinks they are underestimating certain logistical costs but no way it's 50%.
Did you read that? You’re picking out one cost: printing.
Scroll down to where the cost breakdown of a paperback is. More than $5 once you include distribution and retailing.
Or, as some might say, more than 50% of $10.
Ok, then the other thing you're missing is that distributors also get a chunk of the ebook. You said ebooks have "no middlemen" but that's blatantly false, Amazon is the emperor of ebook middlemen. I suppose publishers could try selling ebooks directly but then they lose the Kindle platform + Amazon's reach, so Amazon charges for that service. They are a middleman.
And in some sense the publisher is a middleman. While authors can sell directly, they rarely do. All of the books I have read had editors, publishers, etc. Not just the author writing and uploading.
The publishers conspired with Apple to force Amazon to increase its margins.
https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/e-book-conspiracy-apples...
I might be misreading your message, but most ebooks I buy are in the $5-15 range, whilst physical books I buy are usually $20-30 range. I'm reading your message as in "they are equally expensive" which is not the case. But I'm having a bit of trouble parsing your second sentence lol.
It looks like you're right -- what I've noticed is that ebook prices have remained steady (and too high) but what I failed to notice is that physical book prices have grown wildly since I was last looking at the situation.
So maybe the economics are shifting -- I certainly hope so. I don't know if there's a big market for a premium eReader (like the Oasis) or whether there's a push to improve the UX to the point where it's usable, but I would very much like both of those things to happen.
That said, Amazon is definitely making a streaming push and the UX for their "Fire Stick" is on par with the UX for an actual "Dumpster Fire" so maybe they're just really bad at it.
> that ebooks are sold at par with at a premium to physical books still bothers me, and I think is responsible for the fact that the Kindle is dying
Ebooks have always been priced this way. How can it contribute to its dying when it was this way during the "glory" days?
That pricing really only started in 2010. Prior to that, publishers would sell them to Amazon at (presumably) a similar cost to wholesale physical books, and Amazon would mark them up much less than the physical books.
A number of authors have written about this and the tldr is that ebooks aren't really any cheaper to produce.
Paper is cheap. Shipping is cheap. The incremental cost of making a physical book is so small as to be noise in the overall book price.
If that is true, of which I remain highly skeptical, then it implies that books are wildly inefficient to produce.
What on earth are all the middlemen between book being authored and it being sold to a customer that add so much overhead that the cost of printing and logistics disappears in the noise???
> If that is true, of which I remain highly skeptical, then it implies that books are wildly inefficient to produce.
It just means that publishers are really good at manufacturing physical goods. They've been doing it for several hundred years so no big surprise there.
Books don't sell in large quantities. The economics of scale for the publishes for labor aren't there.
No one is getting rich off of fiction publishing except for the rare break out author. Publishers go out of business (or get acquired) all the time because they are constantly one step away from being insolvent.
This is also why the industry has massively consolidated.
I highly suggest reading breakdowns of the finances of publishing books, it is an interesting field that is incredibly different than how we are used to seeing numbers work in software.
The middlemen are giving your book some (still probably rather small) chance of being bought in significant numbers. If you just want a big stack of books and don't care if anyone buys them, they're not especially expensive to produce.
When you consider that different ebooks and different font selection can result in lines and pages breaking at any random place, ebooks may actually be more expensive to produce.
Don't think I've ever read a properly produced ebook. Page breaks fall wherever and formatting is dictated more by my size/border/etc choices than by whomever "produced" then book.
Nevertheless automatic typesetting and formatting have existed for decades! TeX and LaTeX are ancient and produce better looking results than any book I've ever read on any of my ereaders, and those aren't the only tools in this space.
Whatever people are paying for such "production" seems wasted.
I converted ebooks into PDFs specifically formatted for my reader size and typeset in the fonts I like. It had proper kerning, hyphenation, widow/orphan control, drop capitals, etc.
However that PDF is not reflow-able (or changeable in any way) once it's on the device, and that's not what people are buying ebook readers for.
There are two tabs on main Kindle screen - Home and Library (and also pretty good search). In Library you can see all your books AND collections as folders.
BOOX devices have their own issues https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33353640
I think Kobo has same issues with DRM as Amazon does.
Also, Kindle devices are cheaper, last time I checked, low end models of competitors, didn't have flush-front screens, like Paperwhite.
I never had problems described in this article (but YMMV of course).
Very frequently when I turn on my Kindle it starts on “Home”. I have never found anything on “Home” remotely useful, and just want to see the books that I already have on the device, but they keep pushing me over to the screen full of ads (and it often takes >5 seconds to switch screens after I tap on “Library” for some reason). I think that's what they're talking about.
The kobo store has problems with DRM but Kobo devices do not. they’ll open whatever you put on the file system (and it’s treated as a first class citizen along with anything you’ve bought from them). They also are extremely easy to install custom firmware on.
Kindle's are cheaper because Amazon sells them at or below cost to lure users into their ecosystem. This helps them control the market from both the seller and consumer sides, in keeping with their overall business model. Add to that the fact that you don't really own the e-books you "buy" through Amazon, just like pretty much every other digital "purchase" these days, and that's enough for me to never buy one.
Of course, the general state of e-book devices is pretty abysmal. There are no good options I'm aware of.
> Add to that the fact that you don't really own the e-books you "buy" through Amazon, just like pretty much every other digital "purchase" these days, and that's enough for me to never buy one.
True. That's why I prefer to buy books on other platforms, sometimes directly on authors website. And nothing stops me from reading them on Kindle. Maybe that's the reason why I don't understand the problem here.
BOOX devices have their own issues...
This is such a non-issue. Whether my device phones home to the US or to China makes no difference at all to me (as a on US / China citizen). Boox devices do not serve any kinds of ads, are fully Android, you can customize your starting screen however you like, read every format (including amazon. kwx), have great battery life and I own what I put on them and nobody bricks them for whatever reason. Even better: I can buy wherever I want from* and download directly from the store to the device.
*Edit: except amazon, of course
> Kobo
I've never had to interact with the Kobo store (which I guess is what you mean?) and just chuck the epubs I have manually, they all just work out of the box.
The only DRM-related thing I've dealt with is me hooking Libby up to it to read a book I borrowed.
Most, if not all, ebook stores have "issues" with DRM because publishers demand it (and authors too often simply go along with it). Amazon and Kobo (and other ebook stores as well) let authors of self-published books decide whether or not to put DRM on their books.
> There are two tabs on main Kindle screen - Home and Library (and also pretty good search). In Library you can see all your books AND collections as folders.
Two tabs, which one do they default you to? Which one do they default you to?
Such claims make me think that this post is biased.
While I agree with the sentiment, one nitpick - "When you buy a Kindle, you are buying a disposable product with a predetermined shelf life. Meanwhile, when you buy a Kobo, you are buying a tool that can be maintained for a decade or more." My Kindle is still going strong after 15 years, including a few years of not using it at all when I was enjoying reading physical books. That longevity is why I'm angry about this. I have a perfectly serviceable device and it's effectively being taken away from me.
The statement can be extended to almost any device indeed. To my dismay, Tolinos/Vivlios (or whatever your country calls the rebranded device) haven’t seen any improvements in forever and the local stores are hard to use.
I’m still using my Kindle Oasis 2nd Gen, plugged off and jailbroken, side loading my old collection or public domain books. No one has made something remotely as nice to use as the Oasis, including Amazon themselves. Jailbreaking was quite easy. The only thing that will kill my Oasis is the battery being nearly impossible to change.
My Kindle 7 has severely degraded battery life now, it barely lasts two weeks. It's got to be about 12 years old now.
The screen's got some little black dots where it fell out of my laptop bag in the back of the Landrover and got squashed under the spare tyre and a toolbox. Even that didn't kill it though, it just gave it a couple of little black dots about the size of a lower-case "o" in the smallest font. I can live with that.
I dunno about the Kindle 7 specifically, but replacing the battery in many models is pretty easy.
Do NOT buy a Kobo device for Libby integration. It is a LIE. I found out the hard way.
Kobo only integrates with OverDrive, the predecessor to Libby. You can only use one library card at a time with OverDrive, and don't have access to the audioboks or periodicals on Libby. Meanwhile Kobo will aggressively push you to sign up for their monthly subscription to get access to that kind of content.
If you want Libby on e-paper, sans Kindle, your best bet is to look at the E Paper android tablets (I use Boox) and just install the Libby app. The experience isn't perfect but its the least worst option.
Just want to semi recommend Pocketbook (please do your own research, never take a random recommendation et al).
I bought the Verse Pro Color. It doesn't require an account, it doesn't require wifi. I transfer epubs via USB and the pocketbook works on device without ever logging into a Pocketbook account.
There are other reasons not to like the device, but it's refreshing not to need to login to even use the device.
Kobo works with Libby if you use Adobe Digital Editions as an intermediary.
From the Libby web page, you have an option to download the ASCM. Load that onto ADE, and you have the book. Then plug in your Kobo and transfer the book. It even respects the loan duration!
This isn't perfect, but it works, so I can't agree that Libby and Kobo are absolutely incompatible.
I tried that, and it was incredibly frustrating to have to run back to the PC every time, not to mention vacations and things like that. At that point you don't even need Libby since you can do the same with digital editions off your library's website.
> You can only use one library card at a time with OverDrive, and don't have access to the audioboks or periodicals on Libby.
I personally was fine with the limitations, after all I'm only one person and I would only ever read books on my ereader.
You can't even get all books either.
I've got multiple library cards so it is a non-starter.
Maybe it's a Canada thing, but it works seamlessly with Libby for me.
I forgot one more important thing: OverDrive only has a subset of the libraries on Libby, so it's possible for a library to be on Libby and be unavailable on Kobo.
Related:
Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47678320
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690049
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47747330
Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47816878
That last is a bit click bait. The Kindle for PC app is being replaced with the Windows Store app. You will still be able to read on PCs.
The site causes cancer but the conclusion of TFA is sensible: just get a Kobo and be done with it. I had a Kindle for years but there's no reason to stick to Amazon for e-readers anymore.
Kobo + Libby + Calibre has been my loadout for a decade. Works great!
Agree, though for me it's only been a year, so all I can feel toward your "for a decade" is jealousy. It really is a much more enjoyable experience. If only I'd switched sooner!
Kobo was a Canadian company (before being bought out by Rakuten, though I think they still have a big office in Toronto) and I'm Canadian. So I think we were early adopters of their e-readers for that reason. All our bookstores and electronics retailers (RIP Futureshop) carried them.
I really want to like the Kobo. I really do. But I've had such bad luck with their devices. For example, sometimes the pages randomly start turning, really fast, so I completely lose my place. It also never reliably syncs between devices. And the integration with Overdrive is unreliable, only working some of the time. I also read it in the bath sometimes, which supposedly is one of the features available due to the water resistance, but the steam causes random clicks on the device, which makes it not really functional.
For me, I've mostly switched to reading on my phone. Dark mode, plus OLED, works very well for my needs.
If you have trouble with the default software on a Kobo ereader, you can install other applications aside it, then switch to them after boot. In my experience, the installation process is innocuous and straightforward.
I use Koreader: after experimenting with various configuration parameters for a few days, the UI is now stable and tailored to my taste. Once in a while, I switch to another app: Plato is better at handling huge PDF files.
Another bonus point is that I can mount my ereader as a USB mass-storage and rsync the git repository of my ebooks onto it.
You can also SSH into it because it's just running Linux.
So you could even just git push.
> For example, sometimes the pages randomly start turning, really fast, so I completely lose my place.
FWIW, I've had the same issue with my Kindle, and cleaning the screen seemed to fix it reliably.
I bought a Kobo Libra about a year ago and it's rock solid although I'm not using any sync features. I turned on the airplane mode on day one. Just works.
i love my libra. i added a pop out handle thing they make for phones and its much easier to use one handed.
I've had three different Kobos (two with touchscreen) and never ran into this issue.
But the Overdrive issues are infuriating, especially when you miss out on a hold from the library and have to get in the queue again. On popular books it can take months. :(
However I'm inclined to ignore anyone who pushes their argument as "I'm doing X and you should too". Tell the good and bad things but don't tell me what to do
The ereader scene is just a disaster that shows the dangers of prioritizing DRM. I had ereaders for two decades, managed to read about 6 books on them and ultimately have almost nothing to do with related media forms because of the experience which replaced any actual reading routine with jumping through hoops.
I've owned an ereader for about a decade and never felt that I need to jump through any hoops to read a book on it. I've been getting my books from some gal called Anna. Apparently she has a pretty impressive archive.
I truly hope you're buying books as well - authors (and editors, illustrators, translators, etc) should be rewarded for their art.
One of my favourite writers only publishes on Amazon, so I subscribe to their Patreon to offset the fact I "acquire" their books with alternate means.
Yes, it's not hard to do both.
The Kindle scene is a disaster that shows the dangers of prioritizing DRM. Meanwhile, I'm buying DRM-free books and keeping them in Calibre and reading on KOReader. It's a great experience.
My experience with the Kindle is great, but I mostly use the Kindle Unlimited subscription to read progression fantasy. Good value, easy to use. The quality of the content is very mixed, as any PF fan will tell you, but them's the breaks.
I get the DRM hate but I've had a kindle, a few at this point, for roughly 14 years. I've read over 6 books this year alone. Not sure it's the device if you've only manage to read 6 books in 20 years.
You can get a Kobo Reader and disable internet access to it so it never connects to a server. You can then plug it in to your computer and it shows up as a mass storage device. Then just drop PDFs, ePubs in.
I never liked Calibre, it's weirdly shoddy software, slow as a dog, and the worst UX i've ever seen in a popular app - so I needed something I could just drop my files into.
The dev behind Calibre is a Big Personality, the story was they were more willing to support a private Python 2 fork than spend the time porting Calibre to Python 3 :)
But it still is THE best way to convert books from one format to another and one of the best to fill in metadata in a compatible way.
The UX is god-awful though.
I do the same thing with a kindle. I've never had it connected to the internet or used any amazon services with it. All my books were just moved over via usb.
The weird thing is how huge Calibre is considering, I'd wager, 90% of people (myself included) just use it to convert books and never touch 1/100th of the tools and functionality in it, not touching on the fact that it's not a shining example of intuitive software. But once you have it setup, using it as a middleman is pretty straightforward and easy.
Is there a simpler conversion tool that does as good of a job? I've literally not looked in a decade plus.
I did this with a pocketbook. I wish I could recommend it strongly, but in fact the USB port is extremely finicky (often can't charge, can't get Calibre to detect it). As it is I can only recommend it as the cheapest ebook reader that's comfortable to read from.
I've had two Pocketbooks and never encountered these issues. Sounds like you had some bad luck.
Bingo. A Kobo which never touches the internet and uses only epubs and PDFs. I should have done it ages ago.
also, i use my kindle to read library books. will that still work?
You won't be able to read library books on it after it resets (which it will eventually) unless you jail break it. My son jail break'd his kindle so I guess its not too hard and you can read library books that way.
No Kindle Unlimited, though, and library apps will probably drop support for the older stuff in time.
Jailbreak on very old Kindles is reasonably straightforward and the fact that Amazon hasn't even put out point releases to stop it (as the do with newer models) is a strong hint that they've just given up on maintaining them. I still have a K3 (Kindle Keyboard) that not only is jailbroken: it runs Tailscale.
Unprotected books, no problem. Anna's Archive + Calibre will keep working just fine.
As much as I am a fan of annas-archive, Zlibrary Koreader Plugin[1] makes a bargain I can't refuse.
[1] https://github.com/ZlibraryKO/zlibrary.koplugin
Cool. Both my K3 and PW4 are jailbroken and have KOReader...
I got an android based epaper device and installed Libby on it. Overall it is a much better experience than doing the library to Kindle dance. I can just browse my local library's ebook collection on device and immediately open them in one tap.
Battery life standby time isn't nearly as good, but being able to also read Notion pages, review full PDFs, and other benefits from having an actual tablet, make the battery life sacrifice worth it.
Basically any cloud connection to Amazon will be closed on these devices. The only way to add books will be USB.
calibre? I mean that's what I use with my old kindle.
I love my kobo I got Claude to SSH into it and stuff. I got it where I can say download the latest blog post from xyz, convert it to a kepub and add it.
The devices were supported for more than a decade. Sure, this forced deprecation isn’t great but it’s still had a longer lifetime than many other devices.
I’ll happily keep reading on my kindle, it’s the most ergonomic way of reading for me especially when traveling. I get that there are other options like Kobo, but I don’t see it as significantly better than the Kindles. And I like the fact that I can also use the iPad and iPhone apps for kindle to read on the go if I don’t have the physical kindle with me.
IIRC, part of the original sales pitch was replacing physical books, for whatever reason one might like to do that. I did it because I was doing a LOT of travel.
I haven't had a job that requires travel in a long time, so looking at it from that perspective, having my library also require some kind of additional device maintenance cycle or whatever really adds a layer of complexity I don't want to deal with, so depending on what options I have and what I'm buying, I'm finding myself these days purchasing physical books more frequently just to avoid the hassle for future me.
One benefit apart from travel that I couldn’t go without is adapting the font size. I have pretty poor eyesight and some physical books were a PITA to read. Especially from bed / bath where I wouldn’t normally wear glasses.
Yeah, my sister bought into the Kindle eco-system early on, but I picked a Sony PRS-505 instead (mostly because it would fit in a Travelsmith shirt pocket) and for a long while, the only ebook which I had "purchased" was Robert Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ which I got w/ a $10 credit for browsing their store on a certain day (which I then got a price-fixing rebate check for which I kind of wish I'd kept...) and it was so rife with errors I had to check out a copy from the library to determine what some of them were. When the Sony ebook store closed down, my "library" was transferred to Kobo's and their copy of that novel was made in a different fashion, or corrected, so was actually readable on the Sony PRS-600 I eventually upgraded to.
Since then, I bought a Kindle Paperwhite, and I've made a game of either getting free e-books when offered on the store, or purchasing books when on sale and I've had sufficient Amazon gift cards from Microsoft Rewards, so that I've not spent "real" money on any virtual books, except for when I've purchased an ebook to go along with a newly published hardcover by an author whose work I feel strongly enough that it merits such doubled purchasing.
I still buy e-books for nonfiction I expect I'll read once, take a few notes on, and then probably never come back to, if I can't easily get them at the library. No need to clutter up my already overflowing bookshelves. For anything else I'm with you – not only do you not have DRM or other bullshit, physical books are still easier to navigate and overall more usable.
(This is absolutely bonkers though – the experience of using an e-reader has basically not gotten better since 2008 when I got my first Kindle. There are still glaringly obvious usability issues which nobody has spent any time innovating on.)
Also Kobo's ecosystem exhibits many of the same DRM problems that Amazon has. The majority of book publishers still require DRM. You get DRM locked copies regardless of if you buy them from Amazon or Kobo (or Google Play Store).
Some of this post just seems that an "Android Authority" only just now realized there are less-forked Android-based e-readers versus Kindle and they feel happier with the Android ecosystem (and its DRM) than Amazon's. To me it feels a bit like a choice between Purple Drazi and Green Drazi. Many of the same problems but a different ascot color.
There wouldn't be so much backlash if they didn't end downloading ebook support from the website.
Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)
Well, I find Whispersync for Kindle to be absolutely irreplaceable.
I have a 40 minute drive to work each way, and I find audiobooks the best way to pass the time. At night if I want to read the same book from my drive, Kindle picks up exactly where I stopped listening. And does the reverse the next morning when I get in the car.
If any else is doing this, I am unaware. But it's AWESOME.
My main complaint is Amazon has discontinued Kindle devices with physical page turn buttons. Whoever made that decision should be fired.
When you own a lot of books physical storage becomes an issue. I had to stop buying physical books because I have nowhere to put them.
Ah, that’s a very valid use case. I sadly don’t read as much as I’d like to (I only have a couple dozen books to my name, though I’m in my mid 20s.) I can see storage becoming an issue though if one owns hundreds, if not thousands, of books. Not a bad problem to have I suppose!
Other commenters gave good reasons, and here are a few more:
- If you like long books, an e-reader is much lighter than a tome. Not only more portable, but also easier to hold when reading.
- When lying down you don't have to fight the cover 50% of the time. Easy to read one-handed too.
- The new ones are water-resistant.
- You can have multiple books available, in case you switch it up or just finish them quickly.
- Search feature.
- Built-in bookmark.
- Time estimates until end-of-chapter and end-of-book.
- The e-ink screen doesn't feel like a screen. Not really a plus on top of paper books, but just because you mentioned.
I still read physical books when they're gifted or the medium requires it (House of Leaves being the latest example), but otherwise I'm 100% on e-readers. Previously Kindle Paperwhite 6th Gen, and since a few weeks, Kobo Clara BW.
They are very practical for travelling. I love reading physical books, but also read fast and love reading 3-4 books at a time. An e-reader is basically half the weight of 1 book compared to lugging 3 or 4 books in a carry-on.
Looking up words on the fly by just holding your finger on them.
If the book is not written in your native language or you like to read books with unusual vocabulary (e.g. historical books), it's an absolute delight. So far, a concise dictionary like Oxford has worked the best for me, while Wiktionary or similar always came short.
The other is heft and handiness. If you read anything that is larger than a small notebook, an e-book is much more practical. You also don't have to hold it open all the time.
For me: - Easier access to books in other languages or out of print - Quick access to a dictionary - Backlight for reading in bed or in the evening - Pocketability - Way cheaper if you read a lot of public domain books (or have a parrot sitting on your shoulder)
That said, I have a jailbroken Kindle, but I am not giving a cent to Amazon. Should it break I'd just get a Kobo.
I share a bed with my wife and I like to read past when she goes to sleep. It's really nice to be able to read in bed with a frontlit device without having to bother with whether I'll accidentally flash my nightlight on her face if I move.
Also, here in Canada Kobos are extremely well integrated with library systems. It's a minor advantage generally, but during covid when libraries were physically closed it was a lifesaver. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I read less, but I read between 60 and 100 books most years so this is a big deal for me.
One of the last physical books I owned was The Three-Body Problem trilogy in a single volume. It was massive, heavy and honestly beautiful. I loved it.
Then I switched to the Kobo Libra Colour. The weight and portability make a huge difference. Having my entire library with me means I am no longer stuck with whatever I decided to bring before leaving home.
The color display is not amazing, but it is good enough for comics. I have been reading things like Attack on Titan and Spider-Man on it. Reading tech books has been great too, especially those with graphs and images.
If I had to sum it up in one word, versatile.
Text size control is great for anyone with less than perfect vision. I tend to like reading dense non-fiction and the world seems to think that requires itty bitty text.
For me the:
- Built-in dictionary - Being able to read anywhere, even when light is not available (on a taxi, for example) - Can fit it in my pocket - Less annoying to read while lying down in bed, and the page is automatically marked when I fall asleep - Adjustable typeface and font size
I mostly use my Kindle to read books from my local library's digital catalog. The Libby app hooks into many (all?) US library systems, so I use my phone to check out a book and it's available immediately to download. This is hugely convenient and feels magical since it doesn't cost anything.
If you use something like an iPad, you can also do all your reading on one device - substack, blogs, books, newsletters, audiobooks etc. You can also just continue reading on your phone at any time if you end up in line, in transit etc. which helps me read more.
Ctrl+F. Highlighting, notes, and bookmarks with the ability to hide them. Reading in a dark room. Adjustable font size. Slim size (that's related to portability but I can also read an 800 page book in my bed without getting my arms tired).
Nearly instantaneous access to the definition of a word, usually.
Modern e-readers are waterproof enough for pool or bath reading. It's nice!
This is the company that once remotely removed 1984 (of all books). Of course they don't care about you.
The big problem here is that devices can not be re-registered. It's a mean move from Amazon, and will make it difficult to re-enable extra features. However, those devices have multiple jailbreak methods available, so there's really no loss if you can take that extra step. All books are presumably still available on the kindle app / website, and because you already bought them you can pirate them.
Kindles have the best text rendering (imo), and calibre can be used to sideload books. My PW1 had stellar text rendering. My next kindle, Kindle 10 had a lower PPI but decent text rendering. I now use a PW5 and the text is flawless.
Kindle's UI does suck, though. Very slow and the keyboard is glacial. Still, page turns are zippy and it collects highlights in a central file, which is very handy.
This is hardly unique to Kindles.
I have an old iPod, which still works fine. But nearly all of its apps no longer work because the servers they connect to don't support it anymore, making it essentially useless.
Same thing happened to my older Samsung tablet.
Same thing to my various internet radios.
[dead]
As someone affected by this:
-The old kindles are great products that last a long time -I don't expect Amazon to support them forever, but kindasorta bricking them on their way out is a dick move -Jailbreaking is straightforward but this probably hits older people who are not very tech-savvy the most. Like quite a few others here, I too have an elderly family member who I had to help resolve this
I feel there's gotta be some compromise between letting old electronics age gracefully so they don't occupy landfill and a company's need to support aging products over a long time... though I'm not sure what's a good model.
I'm not buying another Kindle until there's a successor to the Voyage's "Limited Edition Premium Leather Origami Cover." If a competitor wants to lure me over, that is the way.
Amazing that it's 2026 and people who write articles on tech-focused sites are still surprised that they never actually owned the books on their Kindle. Do they also think they own their steam games, or Gmail address?
I'm a fan of the Roku e-readers. Affordable, hackable, and you can add your own books just by plugging it into your computer.
I assume you mean Kobo, not Roku?
Rakuten.. a combo. Kobo the brand was sold to Rakuten (close to Roku) in 2012 after 3 short years. They also own Viber (same name - a popular global secure messaging platform that isn't owned by Meta) and ebates (renamed - a cashback platform). Amongst various other Rakuten branded things
Oof, yes, kobo
Sure you can, just get an older one. I'm very happy with my jailbroken Kindle 4 running KOReader. AFAIK re-registering won't brick it, you can still sideload just fine.
We should be normalizing a separation of device and ecosystem. These are for consuming books, it's not an awful inconvenience to sideload every 19 hours of consumption to queue up the next read.
Or you can Zlibrary Koreader Plugin[1].
[1] https://github.com/ZlibraryKO/zlibrary.koplugin
I have several Kindles for me and my kids, I have never bought a book on the Amazon store, instead I side load everything. Amazon basically subsidized a cheap and tough e-reader assuming it would drive everyone to the store, which I actively do not engage with. If it gets bricked in 10 years, I still think it would be worth it.
Just to be clear, "bricked" here means:
1. if you factory reset a device after May 20, you will not be able to sign in or use the device at all.
2. if you have one already you can use it with your downloaded books but you cannot use the official store at all.
You might not have a problem with #2, but #1 is a dealbreaker imo
Again, this is after 13 years, so the subsidized price is worth it for me (personally) for at least 13 years of use. In the original article it compares it to kobo and says “Meanwhile, when you buy a Kobo, you are buying a tool that can be maintained for a decade or more”, so 13 years either way. That said, I don’t like Kindles approach, this is purely a cost benefit calculation and Amazon subsidizing the hardware makes it worth it (for me). I only use ereaders for reading and don’t want/need any more features.
Is there a cheaper _reliable_ option to Kindle?
I'm not aware of it, so unless they locked new Kindle from copying books through USB and working offline I'm not understanding what is this uproar about.
I've got my Kindle for free, so are my books copied there in last 15 years...
I switched to the Kobo ecosystem about a year and a half ago and have been pretty happy. While the book availability and store aren't at complete parity, I've only had one situation where I couldnt get the book I wanted and it was available on the Amazon store (and I read a lot of books).
Side tangent: I’m the developer of Kindle Comic Converter. Kindle updates 5.19.2+ have completely broken the sideloaded manga reader with bugs like huge margins, pages being on the wrong side in 2 page landscape mode, no panel view, no % read tracker, and laggy page turns. I’ve documented the problems here and the first report was 60 days ago. https://youtu.be/Eo6K7omlE7g
And I haven’t even touched all the problems with normal sideloaded books like broken embedded/publisher fonts.
And the 11th gen seems to have the final update be 5.19.2 so there is no hope of future fixes.
Kindle settings > help > contact us > email/call if you want to voice complaints.
> Meanwhile, when you buy a Kobo, you are buying a tool that can be maintained for a decade or more.
But wasn't your Kindle that you bought prior to 2013 maintained for over a decade? 13 years really.
Every year or so, I look into alternative to my Paperwhite, which has been in "airplane mode" since I bought it. So far, nothing else seems to be quite up to the level of my existing device for my use case, let alone better.
It's possible I needed to log into Amazon in 2016 and 2020 when I bought my two Paperwhites, but I haven't needed to do so again since, so I'm not sure this will affect me at all. If it does, I'll have to check my notes for what was closest last year when I last checked.
Yep, go ePub. Have been doing that for years now, after converting my entire Amazon purchase library to ePub thanks to an old loophole.
Apple figured the correct model out years ago with iTunes Music.
I use one because of kindle unlimited, it's nice to have a big selection of books I can just hit 'read' on right on the kindle store.
I don't know if the alternative e-readers have an equivalent store? Tracking down epub files on my PC then transferring to the device multiple times a week sounds a bit frustrating as an alternative.
Also they support kindles for a long time, my kindle oasis from 2016 that I bought used still is supported, and the things battery also somehow is still in good shape.
Kobo has an equivalent to Kindle Unlimited (as well as a good store). It also integrates directly with Overdrive so you can download free library books directly to your device. I recently switched to one and it's superior in just about every way.
I'm still using a Kindle Oasis (and bought a couple of unopened used ones on eBay). I need the physical page turn buttons so Amazon has basically abandoned me. Trying out the Boox and Kobo readers I was immediately struck by their leggy and unresponsive UI (and this is saying something, coming from the kindle, which is already pretty laggy). I used a Nook in a demo and was impressed, but I'm leery of buying the ereader equivalent of a Zune.
Have things improved since the last time I checked in? I really hate so much about the kindle and its ecosystem but it seems to be the best out there.
I also use an oasis permanently in airplane mode, it’s almost perfect, but I am afraid of the day it bites the dust.
Either I've gotten so used to lagginess on the Kobo that I don't notice it anymore, or it no longer is a problem. It seems to turn pages just fine, which is the only place I'm concerned about performance. I've got a Clara BW, so no page turn buttons (they make the device bigger than I liked).
Amazon had recently closed their Android App Store as well. Practically all apps I had ever installed from the app store, including paid ones, have stopped working. Seems like Apps installed from their store had some internal dependence on the store app itself.
Most likely getting ready for the Vega OS transition, which isn't compatible.
I have Onyx Boox for more technical reading and Tolino for lighter entertainment. Never buying any Amazon hardware ever again.
Always loved to have an e-ink reader but the walled gardens always made it so hard. Until I bought the xteink x4, as skeptical as I could be. What a great little device. https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4
I love mine. I've owned a Kindle Paperwhite and a Boox Note 4+ but I never really got into the habit of reading much on them. The Note is great for notetaking, but the Kindle is too big to bring with me everywhere.
The X4 is so small that I can throw it in my pocket and read a page or two when I'm waiting for something instead of doomscolling on my phone. I love that little thing. I've read two books since 3/27 and I'm halfway through my 3rd book.
If you don't like this, physical books are wonderful.
Unpopular here but: This won't bother non-techies who aren't religiously against DRM. They love their kindles, old ones should be thrown away and they will buy a new one (with cool new features like blue light blocking mode).
Has anyone done any interesting work on transflective / reflective frontlit LCD panels? It seems like this is rife for progress; LCDs can achieve densities and response rates that are beyond the reach of any eink device, and only the lack of good contrast stands in the way.
The Daylight Computer[1] is the only thing I'm aware of.
[1]: https://daylightcomputer.com/
Fujitsu used to offer them --- their Stylistic ST-4110 was my favourite device for a very long while, used as for maps/navigation as well as an ebook reader in addition to being my main computer --- quite miss it and the simplicity of a single (stylus-equipped/daylight-viewable) device, as opposed to the ménagerie which I currently use (Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Book 3 Pro 360, Kindle Scribe Coloursoft, Wacom One attached to MacBook)
I don't understand. Will they stop working with Calibre or not?
Incidentally, I hope there are alternative readers that are also just readers. No Android no "applications". I like being able to go on holiday without worrying about charging the ebook reader.
I've had so many problems with ereaders that I've just gone back to using paper books, they have a better UX and none of the issues. I love my reMarkable tablet, but I definitely do NOT use it as an ereader and have no interest in doing so.
I exclusively use my kindle for Project Gutenberg books so this does not effect me, but I'm appreciative of sentiment behind the backlash.
I only wish it was stronger.
When kindle shutted down its service in China, it has already become a joke. You just own a e-ink screen for every penny you spent on it, no matter on the device or the books
Kindle is abandoning readers...
I got a Kindle Oasis in 2018 and it was a perfect device for me. Cellular connectivity, Bluetooth support for audiobooks, and synchronization.
I could start reading on my phone, then transition to listening in my car, and then pick up reading on Kindle. And it worked well in a literal airplane. I didn't have to faff about with WiFi passwords to sync to the latest page, thanks to the cellular connectivity.
And now Kindle devices lost cellular (why?!?), lost physical keys (facepalm), and are getting worse and worse UI/UX-wise.
Kindle Paperwhite is the only device that comes close to the magic of a physical book
Without physical page turn buttons (and the Voyage buttons don’t count), it lacks compared to physical books still.
I only read ebook when I don't have access to my physical books. When I do read ebooks, I prefer it on my XTeink X4. It doesn't have the conveniences that Kindle and other similar divices offer but it works for me.
I think the most important criteria with a reader (aside from hardware quality) is whether you're comfortable going outside the manufacturer's store to buy DRM-free books, or at least ones that can be liberated from DRM for future proofing. Calibre still speaks the format of these old Kindles, so they're usable, I expect that will continue to be the case for Kindles. If format conversion is too annoying to deal with then it's better to read on a general purpose iOS or Android tablet. I have a Boox NA4C and it's ok, nice hardware, but I have noticed the constant phoning home and am annoyed by the GPL issues (not that I expected a Chinese Android device maker to be fulfilling their open source obligations). For that reason and others I've mostly come around to just reading on a phone and tablet with non-eink screens.
Never buy another ebook from Amazon, sure.
Never buy another Kindle? I keep mine in airplane mode all the time and sideload all the books/papers I want to read. It works practically just as well as when I bought it. Why wouldn't I buy another? If Amazon makes a Kindle with color at 300 PPI, I will.
Sure, proper EPUB support would be nice, but if I need that I can jailbreak and install Koreader.
If there's another device with comparable hardware/software/battery, I'd consider it. AFAIK, Kindle still has the best standby battery life.
"In 2026"? It's been clear for at least a decade that the Kindle was just another attempt by Amazon to gain more control over everything.
The interface got much worse, managing large liberties is impossible.
As a person that does most of his book shopping from Anna's archive - which is the best e-ink reader display wise? Everything else is irrelevant.
If you use Anna's for everything, essentially all of the available e-readers work just fine as a usb-stick-with-a-screen-attached. None of them in my experience handle PDFs well, but I'm sure there are large format ones that do better.
I have a kindle, but have never used any of the amazon specific functionality and don't plan on it. Stays permanently in airplane mode. I have no complaints and find the software more "refined" but not exceptional. I just convert everything to a mobi file.
My partner has a kobo and it seems just as serviceable. Out of the box it supports more file types, but it can be iffy on formatting sometimes, so I've had to fiddle with some stuff in Calibre to make stuff display nicely. I'm sure sticking to epubs would resolve that issue though.
TBH, I find all of the mass market e-readers to all have pretty comparable displays. I used to use a 20 year old kindle and don't find newer ones wildly better. The tech seems pretty stagnant. You're usually picking between things like backlights or light-temp now.
I bought a kobo years ago, never updated it, never connected it to wifi, never bought a book for it, just download epubs and write them to it via calibre
I do the same with a Kindle. Also jailbroke it and made it so it won't auto-update in case I do ever accidentally turn the wi-fi back on.
Oh no! I love my ancient Kindle, and I still use it. This will destroy so many memories that it carried.
“I’ve carried a Kindle in my bag for over a decade. Through every hardware iteration, from the physical keyboard right up to the latest Paperwhite, a Kindle has been with me everywhere”
Wow. I got a kindle keyboard in 2012? It gave out about 4 years ago when I got a PocketBook Touch HD3, which has been great these last 4 years. I think it’s just insane that some people buy all the generations. What a waste.
the only bit of the service i cared about was mailing my kindle address mobis/epubs (even the mobile kindle app receives these)
today i use a boox page, after a friend complimented his
https://shop.boox.com/products/page
Why do those devices need 3GB RAM and 8-core CPU if they well, show books? There is no hurry there. Give us full-blown terminal and ssh/mosh at least.
I run any kind of android app on my boox, firefox, wikipedia, claude etc... You can install also google keyboard and enable swipe typing, it works really well. Only thing I am dissatisfied is the casing. It can break easily if you are a bit careless, unless you use its hardcover.
At least some of the Boox devices support Play Store, meaning that you can install termux.
https://lockywolf.net/2024-08-07_Using-an-ebook-instead-of-a...
probably because of android 11
Can't you put some kind of alt os on it if you want old hardware? Seems the usual way to do it.
Yes definitely. I just followed the steps over at https://kindlemodding.org/ and got my Paperwhite running beautifully and with more customization than ever.
With Kobo devices still available I don’t know why anyone was buying Kindles in the first place.
Kobo links with Overdrive which means you can borrow ebooks from your local library for free, and you can transfer books of a variety of formats openly into the device.
Because the Amazon ecosystem of ebooks and Kindle Unlimited. The device isn’t as important as the service.
The future is physical media that can't be taken away or modified by the monopolies
The future is constant subscriptions to all forms of entertainment that will be delivered in real time over the always available Internet.
Just use Calibre to sideload books into any reader or tablet.
That’s like saying just carry physical hardback books around wherever you go. Missed the point.
If I can install alternative firmware, I will definitely consider buying one.
Slightly off topic, but I was discussing with my wife getting a kindle for my son (8) recently.
Any recommendations for alternatives? I have no problem using calibre to convert the books, and manually transfer from my PC. It just needs to read books.
Depending on how old your son is and or how much you want to invest:
https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4
https://www.boox.com/
Oh thanks that Xteink X4 looks interesting, I'll do some research. Cheers!
I get good value out of using the Libby app with my local library.
I've always told people, Kindles are ereaders seeming designed by people who hate books.
The renderer is atrocious and is holding back the entire industry, much like IE6's crappy renderer and monopoly on users held the entire web back a decade. Browsers (and thus ebooks, which are just HTML/CSS) can now do pretty decent typography, but Amazon inexplicably refuses to get on board with epub.
Their file formats are equally garbage. Mobi, a format that has hardly changed since circa the year 2005, was still in active use until just recently. Their other proprietary formats are confusing in feature set and are opaque to create. The official tool to create Amazon ebooks only runs on Windows![1]
Kindles still can't natively read epubs, but since they accept epubs via email, their customers get confused and email me about it. (Epubs sent via email are quietly convert to Amazon's propriety format, meaning all bets are off on the result. Good luck, publisher!)
I always tell people, buy literally any other ereader.
[1] Calibre can also create them but it's reverse-engineering and not the official implementation.
What on earth is this guy saying doesn’t he own like every kindle?
Stallman was right
https://stallman.org/amazon.html
One way Amazon could make up for this is by unlocking these Kindles' boot loaders so owners can install KOreader instead. I am not holding my breath.
https://kindlemodding.org
Depending on your model or version, it's not hard.
I'm rocking a newer Paperwhite Special Edition, with KOreader installed.
Yes, of course, unsupported also means it stops gettng anti-jailbreaking updates as well. I meant Amazon could atone for desupporting these devices by releasing an official unlock, like how Meta did for the Oculus Go.
It’s never been easier to make your own ereader with parts from AliExpress.
I just stopped reading books a few years ago. I just drink a cup of coffee and stare at the wall. Much more relaxing.
Services will always disappoint you. The book on your shelf can only disappoint you with its contents.
Not true. The books on my shelves constantly disappointed me every time I moved or went on a more than weekend long vacation. I ditched my fairly large and expensive to acquire collection of printed books about a decade ago and don't regret it a single bit. Paper is heavy and annoying to move around in a way that a Kindle simply isn't.
There is also the issue of rot and mold. Librarians suffer from more lung diseases because of this.
I have old Kindles that Amazon disabled from downloading new books. They are trying to force me to buy new Kindles, but I just use the Kindle reader app for my PC. Anyone can recommend an alternative to Kindle. Please let me know.
Just read this thread. Or sideload via USB.
It's not that large of an impediment if you're modestly technically savvy.