Message from Amazon about my much loved Kindle

[ElinoristhenewEnid]

Just got this email this morning. Absolutely gutted - my kindle was bought for me by my ds for Christmas 2011 when he was a student- still works perfectly.

Exactly so why stop her buying new books? Just cut the support.

Oh no. My Kindle is not much younger.

I had this you can sort it. You have to do something battery wise either fully charge whilst switched off or run it down then do a hard restart. It was all googleable (the fix )and it sorted the problem which hasnt happened again. I think it was an update a few years, which made them freeze.

The problem is not the lack of support- I can live with that but the blocking of adding new books to the kindle - happy to add books at my own risk.

While I have fundamental disagreement with your username (you will prize the tab key out of my cold dead hands), as someone who works on legacy software for a living I have to agree.

To keep your kindle working there is a lot of work not to break its software that runs on it. So great care when rolling out new operating system, new payment methods, and book formats for example. It requires active effort to keep it working, it’s not a set and forget thing for Amazon. While I’m not sympathetic to Amazon it makes sense, it’s also hard to find devs who even want to do such work. It can be dull and unfulfilling and there are more interesting things to work on.

A thing of beauty!

I feel sad too OP. I actually was gifted a paperwhite but I hate it and still use my old one. But no more :(

It never ran down, just stayed stuck on the screen for years! No reset or anything resolved it.

I'm really disappointed too, have had mine since 2011 but have ordered a new one today as they are great when travelling.

For anyone interested in a Paperwhite, it looks like the Kids version might be the best value. Cheaper, same hardware/software, no ads, free case included, 2 year warranty rather than 1 year.

That’s the same one I have - awaiting the email arriving, as I’m sure mine must be out of date too! 😩

What do you mean by anna (or is that a typo)?
I use Calibre already to put library ebooks on my ancient Kindle so I'm just wondering what this is!

I’m disappointed. I mostly use the kindle app on my iPad but still dig out my old kindle to read in bring light. It still works perfectly.

I had books I’d had since childhood, but then they all got burnt in a storage unit fire

At least with downloadable content, even if your device goes kaput then you can still access all your books or music or whatever on a new device - which is much cheaper and easier to do then trying to rebuy 100s of books, some of which are no longer in print.

I had that message too. I use my kindle daily, well nightly- I wouldn’t get to sleep without it. I have kindle unlimited and usually read a book each week.
I looked up the type I have and it’s the paperwhite generation 5 from 2012. I’m not sure if it’s affected or not. It still works perfectly fine.

My biggest gripe is that you now have to pay extra not to get adverts on them, which I think is a cheek. They are offering a measly 20% off a new one. I might wait and see if it conks out, after downloading another 20 books to tide me over!

If someone was to google Annas Archive they might well stumble over a website with 64m+ books available for them to download for free.

I have this kindle too and don't know if it's affected or not. It still works ok and use it everyday. I am going to do the same and download a load of books.

Ah, I had that one and gave it away when I upgraded. Good old keyboard Kindle! I’ve had another upgrade since and my husband upgraded his too…and I’ve had two Fires. Not to mention the you know whos dotted about. They own us.

Whilst I agree it's a shame if it still still works ok, there's not much tech from 2012 that would still support new media. Time comes when an upgrade is needed.

My kindle was bought in 2011, exactly the same as the one pictured. I haven't heard anything yet.

Yes, anyone with an older Kindle should download all the books they've bought (they hold hundreds so unless you've bought a load of cookbooks or anything else that takes up a lot of storage space, they'll fit), keep the WiFi turned off and hopefully it will carry on working for the foreseeable.

However, it sounds like the discount code and voucher is time limited so if you think you'll replace it anyway in the next year or so, it might be worth doing it now, especially if you'd get the basic Kindle, which is currently on offer so effectively a triple discount.

I've had the same message. My current paper white is still working well but I have to buy through the app on my phone, can't do it off the Kindle. I'm so cross, I have over 600 books in my cloud. I'm going to try and download all of them before I decide whether or not to replace my machine. It's like iPads. So many downloads to update them, they bung up the memory.

Does using this means authors receive less money? Most are struggling anyway, the authors and publishers need the sales without it the quality will fall.

I think the Paperwhites from 2012 are affected - while they are called 5th generation because that’s how Amazon group their releases, the 2012 Paperwhite was Paperwhite 1. Paperwhite 5 only came out in 2021.

I'd expect that the authors receive nothing for books from that website as its almost certainly an unauthorised sharing platform, with the DRM stripped out.

Or it could be solely out of copyright books by long dead authors, which you can often get for free or very cheap from Amazon legally, eg the complete works of the Brontes, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare etc.