In the case of mass market Kindles, I theft may be a problem. The OLPC project took this into consideration by tying the ereader to a school server. If the computer did not connect to the school server every few days, it would no longer function. This discouraged blackmarket sales and leaves the device with less monetary value than books.

(Contrary to popular belief, the people who run these pilots are not stupid. They put considerable thought into the project's design and do a cost benefit analysis after the fact.)