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Originally Posted by jhowell
(I may be over analysing it. An argument can be made that these features all serve other purposes.)
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I don't think you are. Every time Amazon has added a new format, it's been wrapped in some sort of obfuscation, even when it's an existing format under the hood (AZW3 is epub, AZW4 is PDF).
I think the goal is to keep people using Kindles. If you convert your Amazon book to another format and read it on another device, Amazon no longer receives information about how you're reading your books. Kindle Unlimited relies on that kind of information, but as far as I know, didn't require any firmware updates to work. That means Kindles were collecting detailed enough information for KU in the first place. I don't think that's really a surprise to anyone, but I think it's been underestimated how valuable that information is to Amazon's marketing strategies. If a significant fraction of readers stop providing information to Amazon, that will affect the quality of Amazon's data and it looks to me like they're being proactive in trying to thwart that.
I don't think Amazon really gives a hoot about DRM as such, but ebook containers that are difficult to convert also happen to have the same qualities that make for strong DRM.