[disillusioned]

It seems absurd to me that Amazon is making the product decision to EOL functional hardware that is _actively used to purchase books from them, legally_... all to... what? potentially sell another $100 or so reader? At the expense of... what? Some minimal amount of engineering effort to keep updates flowing for the extremely limited surface area that is the old Kindle OS?

Why upset your customers over this when they were otherwise using this device to give you money?

[ndiddy]

The actual reason is likely that all of these Kindles only support azw3 format ebooks, which are easy to strip the DRM from. This lets Amazon switch to only serving ebooks in kfx format, which are encrypted and harder to strip the DRM from. Amazon stopped allowing saving ebooks to your PC last year, likely for the same reason.

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.

[plorg]

It's more complicated than that. KFX was not encrypted differently than AZW, it's just a proprietary format that no one else supports (AZW being more or less MOBI with some tweaks). The DRM and the format get conflated because the same enthusiasts who want to strip DRM tend to want ebooks in an archivable, portable, standard format that was not achievable with KFX (no other ebook readers care to implement the kind of features it supports, and the way it works is antithetical to coverting it to the more conventional formats). You could still download and strip DRM in versions of Kindle for PC that pulled the KFX format. Only recently did it get to the point that versions of the app supported by the DeDRM plugins weren't allowed to download new books.

[cogman10]

It seems weird that they couldn't simply ship a software update to support kfx. Is kfx decoded in hardware?

[ndiddy]

They probably could do it in an update, but the devices where support has been dropped haven't had firmware updates in 7 years (and that was a certificate update, the last nontrivial update was over 10 years ago), so I guess they don't consider restarting firmware development to be worth it.

[ravenstine]

Amazon can and already did this for my circa 2015 Kindle. I think it's just a lack of will to do so for devices even older than that.

[3eb7988a1663]

It is not like stripping DRM from Kindle books was the only available avenue that could halt the pirate ebook system. Moving the entire ecosystem to the format is still going to see all of the same material available on the high seas.

Worst case, the eye analog hole will ensure that books are the most piratable medium.

[rtpg]

there is something bitterly ironic about iPods (and their "sync" system to basically disallow arbitrary loading and sharing of music and "just" dropping music onto it) being now considered an example of an open device.

[thisoneisreal]

Bought a Kobo and decided I'm just going to stick to Ebooks.com DRM-free section from now on. Tired of not owning what I buy.

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.

[gdulli]

You're an ant to them. All that data they have tells them this action won't hurt them.

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.

[themafia]

> Consumers don't practice agency

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.

[aidenn0]

There's a lot of moving parts here:

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.