Amazon has nothing to do with my user rights. I mostly read drm-free ebooks. But their reader hardware is second to none.
I thought it as well, but then I bought a Kobo (Aura One back then) and I'm super happy. And it is much more hackable: there a countless patches to the official firmware, plus installing koreader is a piece of cake.
oh! good tip. I haven't examined the market in years and years, but the kobo looks pretty nice.