The topic OG Kindle owners are staging a jailbreak revolt after Amazon cut support for their… is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
If the Windows 10 to 11 fiasco taught me anything, it’s that people are more than happy to hold onto old hardware if it still works perfectly okay. And who can blame them? People are often sold devices on their merits, only to be told years later that those same boons are now old and outdated, and they should really just throw out what they have and buy the next best thing.
Well, Amazon recently told owners of the original Kindle models that it was cutting off store support. The Kindles themselves would still work just fine, but you’d no longer be able to use Amazon’s services to purchase or download books. Those who weren’t so fond of the idea of purchasing new hardware when their old Kindles worked just fine did what such people do in this situation: they took matters into their own hands.
As reported by TechCrunch, people aren’t so pleased with Amazon telling them that their legacy hardware is no longer being supported. Faced with the company that they purchased the device from turning its back on them, people are resorting to jailbreaking their Kindles instead. The method varies between Kindles, and some models can’t be broken into, but the ones that can will often get the Kindle Unified Application Launcher (KUAL) installed on them. KUAL then allows people to install the apps they want, such as KOReader, an open-source ebook reader.
Of course, jailbreaking a Kindle is a risky process and is against Amazon’s terms of use; however, when a company cuts support like this, people tend to stop worrying about their device getting banned and are instead focused on ensuring it won’t turn into an expensive paperweight. We’ll just have to see if Amazon has a response for this new wave of jailbreaks or if it decides it’s not worth the effort.
The tech giant is shifting the responsibility for DRM to Kindle Direct Publishing authors.