Introduction
Unfortunately, as you read this you will have a very narrow window to take any action(s) that you might want to in light of Amazon removing the ability for Kindle users to download their legally purchased eBooks. The feature is going away on February 26th, 2025, while this article will be published on the 24th.
Here’s a Hackaday article on how to download a copy of your eBooks in case you want to: Auto-Download Your Kindle Books Before February 26th Deadline
This move by Amazon is quite possibly one of the more alarming things they have done over the past fifteen years of the Amazon Kindle being available. But’s it’s not the only alarming thing that has happened. Let’s talk about this in more detail.
The Kindle’s Sketchy History
The Kindle has long been seen as the defacto eReader for many people. And that is due to the way in which it was well integrated into the Amazon ecosystem. If you wanted to read and buy books, you could do it all right on the device.
And, let’s not downplay the overall functionality and usability of the device. It has a long battery life, is lightweight, and has an excellent screen. Not to mention, due to the aforementioned ecosystem, Amazon was able to undercut most of the eReader market in terms of pricing.
Heck, all of this is why I started using one back in 2019. It was just too convenient, especially once the pandemic hit. But, the Kindle has not been without it’s share of controversies over the past 20 or so years.
For example, back in 2022 author’s protested Amazon’s return policy for eBooks that lead to some of them actually seeing negative balances on their accounts. (Authors are protesting Amazon’s e-book policy that allows users to read and return)
And then there are indie authors who have felt that Amazon has been manipulating the eBook market, or that changes to the platform are affecting them. (Amazon’s war on indie authors?)
And then there is the all-time classic: In 2009 Amazon deleted copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindle, without any warning to customers. (Amazon Secretly Removes “1984” From the Kindle) And the worst part? It took Amazon over a month to offer to replace or refund the purchases (Amazon Apologizes for Destroying ‘1984’ Copies, Offers New ‘1984’ Copies (or $30)).
And, let’s not forget in 2023 Amazon automatically pushed censored copies of Roald Dahl’s books to all Kindle users. (Roald Dahl ebooks being updated automatically with censored versions)
But all of this is this is nothing new. Look around Reddit and other forums, and you will eventually find an author of a reader that has complaints about Amazon and the Kindle specifically. So why would Amazon suddenly be making this kind of a change? I might have come across some insight into this as I was doing a bit of digging.
Hint: It’s Likely Not About Piracy
One of the articles that I saw (The Kindle Swindle) seems to have reasoned that the main reason for this change has to do with piracy. And, to make their point, they point to the UK Government’s Online Copyright Infringment Tracker, which estimates eBooks are pirated at a rate of about %24.
However, that %24 is actually listed as being in the “Average Infringement Level”. Digital Magazines, Sports and Software all have much higher infringment levels, and some of those items are actually within Amazon’s business model. So it would make more sense for Amazon to go after those areas instead of eBooks. Also, Music, Audiobooks, and Film are also in that middle category, and those are at least equally important to Amazon’s business model.
No, I think this change in policy is actually Amazon’s effort to get in front of a potentially on-coming train. That train is a pair of lawsuits that will be hitting them next year.
The first is an FTC Antitrust lawsuit on behalf of users of the Amazon Marketplace. This lawsuit could (potentially) cost the company a lot of money, as the FTC has estimated that the companies pricing strcuture has hurt it’s customers by up to a $1 Billion dollars. (US judge sets October 2026 trial for FTC antitrust suit against Amazon)
While that lawsuit doesn’t directly involve eBooks or the Kindle, the second lawsuit does. In this lawsuit the plaintiffs are alleging that Amazon’s contract terms have had a coercive effect that has lead to higher eBook prices. Originally the case also cited several publishers and other eBook stores, but the case was scaled back after the Judge accepted a recommendation that the case be narrowed. (Amazon must face narrowed lawsuit over eBook prices, US judge says)
So why do I think it is both of these lawsuits that are causing this change of policy at Amazon?
Enshittification Justification
When I mentioned Jeremy Wagstaff’s The Kindle Swindle article earlier, I stated that I think he got the wrong reason. IE, it’s not about Piracy. However, I didn’t think his conclusion was incorrect:
So treat this as the first salvo in a new campaign by Amazon to convert the publishing industry to another dreaded subscription model. If we want to read a digital book, we’ll probably have to sign up for a service, just as with Apple we can’t just buy Slow Horses and watch it, we have to subscribe to Apple+.
Yes, Amazon wants to move eBooks to a subscription model. They have been pushing subscription models for years now. Just think about Amazon Prime, Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, and Kindle Unlimited.
These are quite profitable models for the company. And, the fact that many people sign up for these services, and don’t cancel them makes them even more profitable. This is also the case with software subscriptions — Adobe has been one of the biggest targets of outrage from customers over the way their subscription model is handled.
Which is a good thing for them. If they believe there is a chance that they will lose the FTC Antitriust lawsuit, that could be very expensive for them. Having the extra income from another subscription service could help offset that cost.
As for the eBook Price Coercion case, my guess is that they could claim that there aren’t any further damages that are happening because they have shifted to a subscription model. Under the subscription model the prices of individual books are likely irrelevant. My guess is they will argue that the pricing was really affected more by their Kindle Unlimited program, and that now they have extended that program to include everyone that uses a Kindle or the Kindle App. And this is why they are disabling downloads: if you are getting bookks under a subscription model it’s more likely that people will take advantage of it.
What Does This Mean To You?
That’s a question that is difficult for me to answer. Many people seem to be satisfied with subscription services: Apple TV, Netflix, Spotify, etc. So, I think there are quite a few that will just go with whatever Amazon is cooking up for a subscription service.
Personally, I am not a fan of subscription services. Currently I only have a few subscriptions: Satellite TV, Cell phone, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Music. And honestly, the only reasons for those are (a) until about six months ago there wasn’t a decent offering for cable internet (which would allow me to be a cable cutter, which I was in the past), (b) a relative buys Amazon Prime for me every year as a Christmas gift. I added Amazon Music when I went on a very long trip. Later this year all of this is likely to change when I can re-arrange things and cut back the subscriptions. I won’t be subscribing to the Amazon Kindle Subscription program if it comes about.
To me there is an issue with these moves by Amazon. The first thing is that they didn’t even announce this change, it took The Verge contacting them about it before they even acknowledged that they were making this change (Amazon’s killing a feature that let you download and backup Kindle books).
And then there are the use that Amazon makes of their control over the distribution of eBooks. In some cases it can be good – updated versions of books may correct typographic errors, or correct errors that occurred in the original formatting of the book (there have been several times where I saw reviews complaining about the formatting, only for me to check and find that the formatting had been corrected).
But with this power comes responsibiltiy, and Amazon has shown that they will willingly abuse their power and responsibility. Take the aforementioned cases where the removed 1984, Animal Farm, and pushed censored versions of Roald Dahl’s books. I watched a video on YouTube where someone mentioned that Amazon pushed updated covers for Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels to advertise their Prime Video series.
None of this happens with printed books. And there is value in that. There are plenty of cases where historians have actually studied how authors have changed and updated their works over time. However, in the eBook age, the ability to take this into consideration may be lost. There is a current situation that, while somewhat hypothetical, is completel possible: publsihers may decide to push updated books with maps of North America that change the name of The Gulf of Mexico to the new, stupid politically driven name. (Which I refuse to even mention.)
And there are technical issues here. There are some people that are still using older hardware that can’t download books directly (and now they won’t be able to get them at all). Granted they are a small minority, but they are worth considering.
Another scenario: customer buys a book, and goes someplace where they dont have a network connection, only to find that the book hadn’t downloaded before they left. This has actually happened to me — as someone who uses wi-fi only devices.
In light of all of this, Amazon and the Kindle are no longer an option for me. It was convenient, but convenience doesn’t outweigh my right to make choices in how I handle my books. And convenience absolutely doesn’t outweigh my rights when it comes to knowing that the content of my books won’t change without my permission.
Actions I Have Taken
My route in navigating all of this overalps with many people abnadoning the Kindle (or at least archiving their eBooks), and then diverges from them. This isn’t about the choices that they are making, it’s about my particular needs and specific use case. So far here’s what I have done:
- Downloaded all my eBooks from the Amazon Digital Products website.
- Set up Calibre to manage my library.
- Dug a bit more into my Boox Note Air3C and found out that I can get it to automatically sync to personal file share. I have the share set up, but I have to get Calibre to export books to it. (I have a plan – it will be very similar to using Dropbox.)
- While I was digging around, I found that Boox has added the ability for the Note Air3C to sync with Zotero. So now all the attachments in my Bibliography database are available automaticaly on my eReader.
- I also have a bunch of eBooks in the Google Play Bookstore. I have most of them downloaded and imported into Calibre, which I do sync with my Boox reader manually.
- I haven’t stripped the DRM from about 20 books in my Google Play Bookstore downloads yet. That’s going to take a bit of extra work to get ADE set up.
- There are, weirdly, some books that I uploaded to Play Books that I can’t download. They don’t have any DRM on them, and should be available for export – but something strange has happened…. So I am trying to contact Google about it now. (This is really annoying as I estimate the books would cost $750-$1000 to replace.)
That’s as far as I have gotten. There are several things that are left for me to do.
Replacing Amazon and More
There are several more steps that I would like to accomplish in working towards freedom from the Amazon Kindle ecosystem. Some of these are obvious, a couple of them aren’t obvious (or even directly related).
- The first is replacing Amazon. I’ve looked at other stores, but haven’t completely decided yet. Here’s a couple of first thoughts:
- eBooks.com seemed like it might be good. But then I read they use their own home-brewed DRM system that doesn’t work with Adobe Digital Editions (ADE).
- Google Play is out the window too. Between the problems with getting my books back, and the need to actually go in and check each book individually to make certain it can be exported just makes it un-necessarily messy.
- Kobo seems like it might be an option. I don’t know if it’s a good option, but it’s still on the list.
- There are a bunch more stores out there to check out.
- Also, there are publishers that do directly sell books. Might be easiest to set them up with Calibre to directly purchase and manage the books.
- I have a bit of a side-quest that is Zotero related. Currently I am using Zotero’s storage for my reference database. I can (and will) move that to a private location so I don’t have to buy extra space as my reference database has been growing quite a bit lately (as a result of a whole difference side-quest that started before all of this stuff with Amazon).
- There is also the possibility that I will try to replace Zotero. They still don’t have an Android app after many years of using their PC based application.
- However, the biggest use I have for Zotero, aside from accessing attachments to entries, is for inserting references in notes, articles, etc. There may be a way to get this to work with my note-taking application (Joplin) which would relieve most of the need for a complete application.
- I may replace my Boox Note Air3C with the Note Air4C. I’m still a bit undecided on this one. the Air4C doesn’t have any major changes over the Air3C, but the little refinements they have made do have some significant impact on the overall usability of the device. (At least according to some reviewers who started daily driving the Air4C.)
Okay, there are some more things I still have to consider and work on. But all of that will come along with time.
As for what you do? Well, I think you have an idea of what I think at this point.
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