Quote:
Originally Posted by Sats
Oh, certainly, it is a business decision. Maintenance has some costs, especially in large org. Outstanding maintenance is a liability for the company, so removing it makes sense, as long as risks are considered and public opinion can be managed. I just object to the statement that they "can't" fix those devices. Maybe only those that use 2G and have no alternative, but everything else? They don't want to.
Ads make them money, new Kindles sold make them money (probably), and presumably contracts with publishers that include DRM clauses make them money (and they certainly patch those kinds of DRMs within a day or two. K4PC still cannot download books with "advanced" DRM after I dealt with them). And in general "our DRM is good" is appealing to many large publishers. KU makes them money and becomes less appealing/profitable if DRM is removed. In general, they want to maximize money that certain groups within Amazon get within certain period.
I have been using monitor from 2009 until 2025 before I caved, since getting more and more adapters became onerous. I still find 16:9 to be too wide.
I used macbook from 2011 until it gave up the ghost in 2024. If its disk survived, I would have continued. iPad, likewise, alcohol damage did it in, 2025 was bad for my hardware... And I take very poor care of my devices. So I assume other people might be able to keep them alive for longer. My sister has something that looks like Kindle4, but I do not know the exact model.
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A few responses:
Amazon doesn't say it can't update the old devices does it?
I find it hard to believe publisher are demanding they stop supporting pre-2012 devices because of DRM concerns. And even if they did, Amazon could simply not make those books available in their store and simply put a message "not compatible with any of your devices".
Think you've missed the point somewhat when you talk about old monitors. Same for toasters, kettles, microwaves etc. I'm sure devices exist which run on software now rather than being simple circuits but they're not going to require updates to keep up with the latest bread, water etc in the way that devices which exist purely to consume software/content do. I'm like you - keep stuff going until it literally doesn't turn on. I've used old windows laptops with broken monitors as linux file servers; I've happily used phone roms such as cyanogenmod when Google stopped supporting the phones etc. But the market doesn't work that way. You'd end up paying more for your 2026 Kindle if Amazon were forced to endlessly support every last Kindle just because it was technically possible to do so.