Overview
- Amazon, which ended support Wednesday, blocked purchases, borrowing, and new downloads on Kindles and Kindle Fire tablets released in 2012 or earlier.
- Books already on an affected device still open, but deregistering or doing a factory reset can stop the device from being re-registered.
- Owners are stockpiling titles, sideloading files over USB, or jailbreaking to add apps like KOReader, though that can violate Amazon’s terms and risk crashes or a bricked device.
- The company is offering about 20% off newer Kindles and small e-book credits to impacted customers and says roughly 3% of active users are affected.
- Repair and environmental groups warn the move could create avoidable waste, with The Restart Project estimating more than 624 tonnes of potential e-waste and some readers considering switches to rivals like Kobo.