[Quoth]

LOADS of gadgets don't work properly or at all when the seller loses interest:
Tesco Hudl Tablet: Do not factory reset or it's bricked.
Pebble watches
MS "Plays for Sure". Zune?
MS Watches (early ones used FM Radio subcarrier MS abandoned)
Intel Watches
Office 2002 activation?
Various products when Google/Alphabet took over. Google also notorious for shuttering and disabling software.
Various Archos personal media players.
Various Logitech products (remotes & speakers?)
Various Sonos Products.
Kindle DXG may have problems if factory Reset.
Lose a Kindle, report it to Amazon, find it and Amazon won't re-enable it for registration. Collections will never work. Never publicly expose Kindle Serial number.

Not at all an exhaustive list. Silicon Valley & USA companies are the worst. Kobo is Canadian owned by Japanese owner of popular Viber secure (maybe) chat.

The history of gadgets relying on "phoning home" after a reset or for DRM (about CONTROL, not Copyright) is a disaster. Don't have or enable gadgets that rely on "Cloud" such as home control, door locks, Speakers etc. They are (a) usually exploitive and (b) doomed to fail.

At least with Kindle you can use a gift cert to bypass the credit card demand and a fake email on current Kobo setup.
No gadget should insist on a sign-up process. I expect that will soon be illegal in EU, if it isn't already under GDPR, though some EU countries don't allow an anonymous phone SIM citing Terrorism and Criminality. Actually any smart criminal or terrorist will use fake ID and/or utility bills for the SIM or opening bank accounts. Forsyth's 'The Day of the Jackal' was only one simple loophole still open in many countries.

All of these things are to try an commercially capture customers and endanger people in many countries with less people friendly governments.

I agree it's wrong of Kobo (and all the others). However it's common and something to expect when buying ANYTHING that connects to Internet/WiFi/Cellular etc.
There are phones on sale here in local shops that are GSM only. Under EU Sale of Goods act they must work at least 2 years from purchase. The Regulator here allows Mobile (Cellular) operator to change GSM (2G) to 3G / 4G (or probably 5G eventually, it doesn't exist yet, stuff advertised as 5G is a sort of 4G enhanced) with only six months notice to Regulator and none needed to users!