[DiapDealer]

To be fair: people thought much the same thing when KF8 was rolled out. Yet here we are, still able to buy most of the ebooks available on Amazon in a format that will work on the very first incarnation of the Kindle device.

I'm not saying they won't eventually phase out support for older devices and formats. I'm just saying they've been very reluctant to do so up until now. Had they wanted to, they could have just as easily, and aggressively, and continually, altered the DRM on KF8, and closed all the Download via USB loopholes to force K1 and K2 users to upgrade and effectively eliminate the older mobi format.

But they didn't--and they haven't. So I'm not quite ready to drink the lock-everyone-into-the-kfx-format-and-obsolete-all-older-devices/formats kool-ade just yet. Not when they've had ample opportunity (not to mention motive) to do so multiple times in the past.

There's still tons of those older devices out there, but they're being used less and less. Because they've already proven they can get enough costumers to voluntarily update to newer devices and newer formats without using the draconian methods they've always had at their disposal in order to do so.

They don't need to close the loopholes, because more than enough people voluntarily use the formats/devices they want them to use. Which means they can easily afford to ignore the ones who don't; without needing to waste the time and effort of pissing them off by abandoning them (or cutting them off).