Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I can mount it via SSHFS for anything more than copying a single book.
I stopped buying anything from Amazon on principal a couple years ago, books included; and anyway, most books I read these days are in the public domain – Project Gutenberg is a treasure trove!
Best electronic purchase of my life.
Why upset your customers over this when they were otherwise using this device to give you money?
I did the same with music, using an Innioasis iPod knockoff + buy MP3s from Amazon Music, cheaper than Spotify and I never have to worry about my music becoming unavailable. I also prefer the experience of single-use devices.
An incredibly important turning point of this era is that businesses have learned that they no longer need to fear acting hostile to consumers. Consumers don't practice agency.
1. Competition is much lower in a lot of places.
2. Customers prioritize convenience and (perceived at least) low-prices over being treated well.
Look at airlines: Unless you happen to be traveling between two major airports, there will typically be at most 2 airlines with a reasonable schedule for the two endpoints, and most people will not pay $100 more for being treated like human beings over cattle.
Customers can't practice agency when the markets are mostly monopolized or the products pass through a cartel first.
The moment a viable, cheaper and more convenient option appears, your customers will show you exactly how fickle they are.
It definitely is frustrating though. I have an iPod from 2009 where the battery and hard drive still work fine, and I'm able to use the latest version of iTunes to sync my music and podcasts to it. Shoutout to Apple for that.
Worst case, the eye analog hole will ensure that books are the most piratable medium.
The email Amazon sent out said that if you factory reset your device after May 20 it becomes inoperable. I wonder if that means bricked, or if it just means you can't access your DRM kindle library.
> And while you can sideload DRM-free (digital rights management–free) titles to the Kindle via USB [...], it’s not the best option from a security standpoint.
What a terrible article.
If anyone is looking for a Kindle, try non-Amazon stores. Might have older stock with older and jailbreak-able firmware.
I have a friend at Apple so wouldn’t pay the full price for an iPad.
But for less-excellent authors, where’s a good place besides Amazon to get ebooks?
> “Kindle devices have a relatively small attack surface, and successful exploitation through ebook files is rare, though not impossible,” said Bogdan Botezatu, a senior director of threat research and reporting for cybersecurity software company Bitdefender.
Should sell more new Kindles.
Federal is complicated right now, but can state AGs step in, and make Amazon either continue to support the old devices, or provide comparable free replacement devices?
Should they, no. Why should Amazon continuously support, checks notes... 14 year old devices??? Likely the number of customers using a device like that anymore is super small.
Mine is only like 2-3 years old and I charge it so rarely. I can read several entire books on a charge easily. It lasts months. I imagine even if the battery degraded significantly it would be quite usable.
I was also having a play with a demo model of the latest one in a store and the page turn speed is much much better, which is tempting me to upgrade though I'd prefer to run the current one into the ground first.
Its a Lithium battery so unless you let it drain to single digits every time, it'll last a LOONG time
Unless you can find where the original advertisements (not microscopic fine print) said that the company would disable the network service side after a period of time, such that the buyers knew that's what they were buying, then the company is obligated to continue operating the service they sold. Or negotiate some alternative satisfactory to the buyer.
14 years of support really isn't bad at all.
I’m much happier with my new device