Amazon thanks loyal Kindle devotees by bricking their kit
6 months ago by supersquirrel to c/enshitification
Sadly Calibre has AI crap in it now: https://codeberg.org/...
Thankfully there are forks which exclude that.
I think Amazon actually bought Calibre! At least it still works…
Edit: I’m apparently totally wrong here! Not sure where I heard that, so nevermind
Weird, I don’t usually make up stories like that… nevertheless you are correct and I was wrong! Glad to see it in this case.
What? No.
I'm so glad I broke out of the Amazon ecosystem.
I am a huge kindle fan. It was the best ebook on the market in 2010 (or whenever it was first released). Then I got the fire phone. Then Alexa. Then Kindle Fire for my kids.
And every new device was shittier than the last as they're pretty much worse than stock android devices. Id pick up a Temu device over these Amazon devices.
This is why I use, love, and advocate for Kobo. They're not super cheap like Kindles usually are, but they're pretty durable. I have the libre 2 and my cats knocked it off my end table onto a concrete floor dozens of times and it still works perfectly. Only issue is the unlock button is a bit pushed in, because I press it unreasonably hard.
They need to do a budget model, because that fucker is going on the beach. It’s going to the bottom of my suitcase. It’s going in my tactical satchel next to my keys.
When it comes to open tech, I really think we need to change our way of thinking.
We have a habit or comparing the price of alternatives against the market leader (in this case Kindle) and assessing value on that basis, while at the same time forgetting that Amazon claws back a huge amount of profit after the point of sale on books - specifically because of their closed ecosystem. The monopoly allows them to subsidise the device.
If we are buying open devices which aren't locked down, the companies selling those devices have to actually make all their profit up-front on the device itself, and so it's naturally going to feel comparatively more expensive.
We have to remind ourselves, if we value freedom we need to be prepared to pay a premium for it.
I've gone with 3rd party eReaders that can use the app for either, but my main concern is that a lot of authors seem to be locked in to Kindle and not actually providing books for other platforms, in particular authors under Kindle Unlimited.
Kobo has a similar problem. I have a Kobo mini I can no longer use.
Try the Calibre software to access the kobo. Keep it off the internet.
Kobo does the exact same shit tbh.
The article has a different title* which doesn't mention bricking, because that's not what they're doing. I happily moved off Amazon onto Kobo and Koreader, but this post's title is a lie:
They can continue to read books already downloaded on these devices but won't be able to "purchase, borrow, or download additional books on them after that date,"
Bricking would mean they'd been completely sabotaged so that they wouldn't even boot, and would now only be useful as a paperweight or building brick. Again, not true.
* I've noticed the page title (as opposed to the visible heading) is the same as here, I thought that OP had made up this title.
If you factory reset it, it becomes a brick. They specifically warn of that.
You mean this bit:
"If you deregister or factory reset these devices, you will not be able to re-register or use these devices in any way."
I'd be interested to know what actually happens in that case - I suppose they could have sent an update that fully locks out an old device but factory-reset Kindles are usable offline (necessary to set up WiFi).
You have to register Kindle devices on first boot after a factory reset with Amazon's servers. They cut that off, so it's effectively a brick that cannot be activated, so it's stuck on a loop forever.
Thats... weird. I have Kindle Paperwhite 1st gen. It never kissed a Wifi. It was factory reset at least twice.
I live in EU though. Maybe that's a difference?
Just jailbreak your kindle and turn off wifi for good. It's probably vulnerable to a ridiculous number of remote exploits anyway.
Additional benefits: support for more formats. Then a computer with Calibre as mentioned in another comment will help you convert all the books you want.
Sadly Calibre has AI crap in it now: https://codeberg.org/...
Thankfully there are forks which exclude that.
You're welcome. Yeah, I agree. I've been doing a lot of removing AI infested programs from my life recently and found that the ones without it work better anyway.
Yeah, it's very sad. :(
I still don't understand why people even use e-books, let alone an Amazon one. Picking up and reading a paper book is one of the most beautifully simple hobbies you can possibly have. You don't need to pay a monthly subscription, you don't need to log into your account, you don't need internet access, you don't even need electricity!
I think it is kind of absurd to argue against the utility of a computer attached to an eink screen. Sure I love physical books too. I don't see the conflict.
The problem is Enshittification not the "digital" part..??
In short, I feel the "digital" part has enabled the "enshittification" part
I think that is a problematic simplification.
Consider that the vast majority of people who use digital devices and eink digital devices whether they be big corporate kindles or more interesting devices like supernotes, boox, or remarkable note taking/reading devices still enjoy reading a physical book on occasion too.
It isn't that simple, the question is how do you relate to reading through physical and digital contexts and how heavily those contexts are controlled by ensnaring forces generally in the pursuit of resistance against freedom of speech and freedom of thought?
The promise of digital books wasn't to allow corporations to further dissect what is beautiful about reading... the promise was to be able to make books that could magically be copied endlessly for anyone that wants it.**Most of the classics in english literature, Ulysses, Moby Dick, Dracula, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, The Brothers Karamazov, The Complete Works Of Shakespeare.... are available in open access ebook formats. Can you not see the deep beauty to that?
I love reading on digital screens, but also I love buying a physical version of my favorite book so I can carry it around and read it, which makes me more careful with buying books and more likely to try utilizing libraries for the books I don't want to buy when I still want to read them physically.
I also love sometimes picking up a random book somewhere in life and reading it just because it is the kind of book I never would have encountered through another means other than happening to encounter it while pursuing some other goal.
There is no fundamental conflict here, just a bunch of bullshit brought in by late stage capitalism and shitty greedy behavior.
Putting books on computers is a great idea, so are audiobooks. Books are great too. End of story.
Back in high school/early college, i was reading daily for ~4 hours at a rate of 60-100 pages per hour. Which means a novel every 2-5 days.
Assuming it takes 5 days to finish a book, that means ~6 books per month. Or ~72 books per year. If every one of them cost $10, then you're looking at around $700 worth of books per year for a teen.
You might be asking: then why not borrow from a library? Well, a) I lived in a country where literature was heavily censored, b) I mostly read in English, which was not available in said library, c) after reading a stupid amount of books per year, you start to realize most books published by the US big 5 fall into specific categories, and to find something not in those you need to look into indie publishing. These days, most people self publish through ebooks on Amazon (and are locked into exclusively deals because of Kindle unlimited, so no physical copies). At a certain point, an ereader is more economical and environmentally friendly than paperbacks. (I used a phone back in those days, I would have killed for an ereader).
As for why I had an old kindle device registered to my Amazon account, I don't actually read on it (it has never been turned on since 2019). It is solely used as a dedrm device. Until last year, older kindles can be used to remove drm from purchased ebooks by simply downloading the ebook from Amazon's website and running a script with the Kindle's serial number. I believe supporting indie authors (that are sometimes chained to Amazon) is more important than hurting Amazon. So once I could afford it, I started purchasing all the indie books I read, downloading them, and ripping the drum for archival purposes. I would read my books on another Kobo e-reader.
As for e-readers I've used: I like things with physical buttons, big bw e-ink screens, and epub support (I have scripts to reformat epub books to my liking). The best e-reader I've had was the Kobo Forma, which I gave a friend after I acquired the Kobo Sage (which was a huge disappointment and piece of crap). These days, everything is shifting to shitty color e-ink screens, so I recently bought a refurbished Kobo Libra 2 (smaller screen, but still paperback sized and has no phantom button issues like the sage). I plan to de-solder and replace the battery and use it for another 10 years or so, until color e-ink gets better or they give up on it.
If anyone wants some examples of good, indie books that stuck with me over the years:
- Virtual Immortality/Division Zero by Matthew S Cox (Cyberpunk)
- Mother of Learning by Nobody01 (Fantasy, Time-loop)
- The Wandering Inn by Pirateaba (Fantasy, got picked up by a big five publisher this month and is re-releasing under Harper Colins)
You can also find these in the other "usual" places.
I would only buy an ebook to read (pirated, possibly) EPUBs and PDFs
I bought a XTEink X4 and flashed it with crosspoint. I went from reading maybe one book every 2 years to having read 5 novels in the last 2 months already. The advantage of the ereader is that I can pull it out of my pocket in any moment of downtime instead of scrolling on my phone and just read
That's valid
And if Amazon decided to not give them any more software updates, they'd be fine.
But actively taking away working functionality is inexcusable, even after 100 years. If the device itself is still working, its functionality should not be reduced.
The headline is misleading. You can continue using the device with the books you have downloaded onto it for as long as you’d like. There also seems to be some homebrew alternatives as well.
Ticking time bomb seems a little dramatic for a device of this age. Anyone who actually cares enough to resurrect this hardware can use homebrew solutions. No vendor on the planet supports a product longer than this. Maybe you could argue the entire industry needs to change, but absolutely nothing about this situation is uniquely diabolical.
That's not an excuse. Anything short of letting you keep all existing behaviour is a failure. It might not quite meet the literal definition of "bricked", but it's not much better.
Linux just ended support for the i486 chipset. Is that out of line by your standards as well? Are vendors obligated to support products for an eternity? What would be a reasonable amount of time to continue providing support if 14 years isn't long enough? I really think the existence of homebrew solutions negates any major concerns here. Even if that didn't exist, there's nothing particularly unique about this situation. In fact the support window was like twice as long as the closest competitors. I think the language here is a little over dramatic to be honest.
Why should they replace it if it still works? Thats just wasteful.
What a bizarrely hyperconsumerist opinion.
Except it hasn't, and they are still functional. If anything they could have disabled WiFi to remove an exploit vector if they were out of support but retained the USB functions, but they promise to brick them on factory reset instead.
Except that the file format hasn't changed, the delivery methods haven't changed, and these devices are perfectly capable of downloading new books from Amazon. This is not a technological decision. This is purely to extract more money from repeat customers.
The devices still work. They display book pages, that's all they need to do. There's zero reason to upgrade just because something is shinier. That's literally just consuming for consumption's sake.
(1) The only reason I had one of these old ones was because removing the drm on stuff you purchased was trivially easy. The new ones use OTA updates to prevent that (old ones allowed transferring purchases via USB, so you can download the books online directly to your PC)
(2) What if the particular form factor you like is no longer produced (e.g. the Kindle Oasis, while not in this list, was discontinued because "nobody needs physical buttons anymore". Amazon gets to decide that, not you)? It doesn't mean what you own should turn into a paperweight.
(3) Sometimes, the device itself has sentimental value. My Kindle was an engineering sample gifted to me as a teen by an uncle that worked at Amazon at the time (I can say that now, he's retired for ages). Replacing it with another kindle isn't the same.
At this point, just go get a refurbished Kobo. A forma or libra 2 would do you much better.
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"I the onceler felt sad as I watched them all go, but business is business and business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies you know."
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From monopolistic corporate shifts to anti-user updates and the relentless pursuit of profit over quality—if it’s broken, bloated, or just plain bad, it belongs here. We’re here to spotlight the moves that make the tech world worse, one piece of enshittification at a time.
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Join us to expose the changes that ruin the things we once loved and to discuss what comes next in a tech world gone wrong.
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@slrpnk.net
Welcome to Enshittification
A community for everyone who misspelt it as enshitification.
"I the onceler felt sad as I watched them all go, but business is business and business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies you know."
This is your space to document the decay, demise, and destruction of the tech world as we know it. Share stories, articles, and firsthand experiences that capture the ongoing decline of once-celebrated platforms, services, and companies in the late stage capitalist landscape.
From monopolistic corporate shifts to anti-user updates and the relentless pursuit of profit over quality—if it’s broken, bloated, or just plain bad, it belongs here. We’re here to spotlight the moves that make the tech world worse, one piece of enshittification at a time.
For some more positive takes
!disenshittify@lemmy.cafe
!deshittification@thebrainbin.org
Guidelines
🔹 Stay on Topic: Only post content about the decline of tech products, platforms, or companies.
🔹 Quality Content: Give some context when posting links or articles to drive quality discussions.
🔹 Respectful Discussion: Critique companies, crappy tech, and capital, not community members.
🔹 Positive Monday: The first Monday of every month is reserved for positive content only that shows enshittification isn't inevitable.
Join us to expose the changes that ruin the things we once loved and to discuss what comes next in a tech world gone wrong.
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