Amazon are killing off their old Kindles - notably the ones which still let you remove DRM from their ebooks

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@Edent I have a 4 gen Kindle that I use daily (since 2011!) and absolutely love because of its physical buttons to turn the pages.

I love it so much I bought an identical one on eBay a year ago to have a backup.

In November of last year I jailbroke both of them... and I intend to continue to use them for as long as they will work 🥲

[xinit@mastodon.coffee]

@Edent Imagine a publisher discontinuing support for paper.

This is why a corporation should never be in between media and the consumer with license 'management' or DRM.

[edent@mastodon.social]

@futzle TBH, it is easier to buy from Kobo. The DRM is trivial to strip and they price match Kindle.
There are some Amazon only exclusives, but they seem rarer these days.

[pa27@mastodon.social]

@Edent Now maybe the time to stop using the kindle store. The laughable thing is, given the tech they have, they sent out a generic email rather than one listing the applicable devices you actually have!
But the real pisser is that my most recent knidle, and the last one before they systematically enshittified the OS, is listed despite buying it in 2020!
So they want an awful lot of folk to buy new devices. I don't see that working well for them.

[smsm1@mastodon.green]

@Edent I recently replaced the screen on my Kindle Keyboard 3G to keep it going longer. I guess I need to get used to putting things on it via USB now.

[derickr@phpc.social]

@Edent I've just jailbroken my ancient PW1 with https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/index.html

[witewulf@cyberplace.social]

@bobdvb @Edent yeah, the Amazon devices are almost certainly loss leaders, even when you pay extra to have no ads.

Consider a second hand older Kindle and root it/put alternate firmware or reader app on it?

[sloanlance@mastodon.social]

@Edent
I have an old Kindle given to me by somebody who didn't want it anymore. I was hoping to jailbreak it to use it as a simple tablet without Amazon dependencies. I hope this news won't prevent that.

[naturemc@mastodon.online]

@bobdvb I think that all readers are quite the same price in production, some companies like Amazon only subsidise them ...

With an epub reader you are already out of their prison ...

@Edent

[suedioh@mastodon.social]

@Edent I have books that are decades old that still work. Every time.

[alterelefant@mastodontech.de]

@SueDiOh
Just wait until the publisher knocks on your door, walks in and takes those books away.
@Edent

[focusedontheberry@mastodon.social]

@Edent #Kobo

[edent@mastodon.social]

@alterelefant @SueDiOh
I have books which are decades old which can't be found in stores any more - I simply can't buy a replacement.. I also have books which are damaged too much by water and sunlight - they're no longer readable.

eBooks are superior in all the ways that matter. Once the DRM is removed they're effectively immortal.

[edent@mastodon.social]

@focusedontheberry #Sandwiches

[derickr@phpc.social]

@NormanDunbar @Edent A third-party ebooks reader that understand more than just Amazon's format, and tinkering possibilities.

[johndgriffith@twit.social]

@Edent

I switched to Kobo years ago because you can check out library e books via overdrive seamlessly (I'm in New York state USA ). My local library system supports overdrive and so does the New York City public library. Any resident of New York state is eligible for a library card/account at the city public library.

You can use overdrive on a kindle but Amazon has put a lot more friction into the process

[eighthourlunch@mastodon.social]

@Edent Fuckers.

[natalyad@disabled.social]

@Edent Ugh. I hate that our governments let Amazon and others make something obsolescent when it's otherwise fine. I will see if anyone wants my Kindle 3 to jailbreak cos I can't cope with the flashing page turn mode and had lost it when I was last able to sell it on.

I will look at Kobo and stripping DRM if I can read the damned epubs in FBReader as I find the Kobo Reader doesn't give me the colour combos and visual layouts I usually need.