Any cheap budget table isn't e-ink, which matters for battery life and, at least for some people, reading pleasure. Also, I mainly use my Kindle for reading research papers in academia, into the hundreds of publications each year. So, after years of using these devices its UI (which I find admirably simple and straightforward) is burned into my muscle memory. So, switching to another series of devices would mean having to adjust to a new workflow that may well bring unwelcome complexities.

There's also Kindle competitors, like the Kobo. You can also bet that if this becomes a wide-spread concern, another e-ink reader may come to market that offers privacy and security, maybe some sort of open-source, secure-by-default, ereader. Some attempts at this have already been made [1], but its not clear how strong the market demand for that is and if it will be successful. If you really want a privacy-centered reading experience, the easiest way to do this is just borrow the printed book from your local library.

[1]: https://hackaday.io/project/168761-the-open-book-feather

For people who read a lot, it makes sense to purchase device that is optimized for reading.

E-ink gives you Better screen for text, a lot better battery life, no apps, no notifications, no video ads, o ads in general, nothing flashy.

And kindles are relatively cheap, and available almost everywhere.

One reason is value. They produce so many, the quality is decent and the price is subsidized so it's artificially low.

Why is it subsidized? Obviously to make it more fun to buy books, but also collecting valuable data on your reading habits. Obviously they know _what_ you're reading but it seems useful to them also to know what you bookmark etc.

They also have all the hardware they need for location history tracking by remembering wifi broadcasts seen. Is it known if that's being uploaded?

eInk is a lot nicer for reading books than LCD screens.

The downside is that eInk currently only supports black-and-white and turning pages is roughly only as fast as turning the page of a book.

Also, battery life is counted in days (and sometimes weeks) and not in hours.

I haven't seen any cheap budget tablet that even comes close to the quality of a Kindle Paperwhite for reading.

Kindle is just a great reading device. The only feature that I _might_ consider using that requires connectivity is the Wikipedia lookup, and the verdict so far is that Airplane mode is more valuable than that.

Kindle is easily the cheapest and most functional reading device out there.