It’s safe to suggest that the Amazon Kindle range is the industry’s leading e-reader. Even for those who aren’t too familiar with its maker, the Kindle name is often used as a blanket term for all digital book readers. This perhaps gave Amazon a sense of security in the market, but given its recent decisions, this dominance could come toppling down sooner rather than later.
At the end of August, Amazon rolled out an update to the Kindle Oasis that closed a Libby loophole that allowed extended borrowing. More importantly, it also strengthened the platform’s DRM, making it even tougher for users to back up their books to other devices. For some users, like my colleague Dhruv, this is the last straw.
But have Amazon’s recent decisions dissuaded you from continuing with the Kindle ecosystem? We ran a poll on Dhruv’s article to gauge the temperature in the community, and the results are clear: plenty of formerly loyal users are now giving Kindles the cold shoulder.
This poll garnered over 2,100 votes, and, remarkably, more than seven in 10 respondents have either already switched to a Kindle alternative or are looking beyond Amazon’s hardware for their next upgrade. To break this down further, 33% of voters have already joined Kobo or Boox, while 37.7% confirm they’ll adopt one of these devices in the coming years rather than a Kindle. That’s a huge share of respondents, and indicates just how damaging Amazon’s DRM moves have been.
The comments section offered more nuanced takes. Reader black.pete.commentary offers up their thoughts:
For me, I bought the Oasis for the physical page turning buttons and the larger screen. I don’t know why Amazon refuses to offer updated versions, but the retroactive removal/editing of purchased titles is enough for me to stop spending my money on Amazon.
However, not everyone agrees. alex79uk retorts:
I really don’t know what the issue is people have with Amazon ebooks and DRM. If I buy a book on my Kindle, that’s where I’m reading it. None of this stops you side loading other books on to the Kindle. This just seems to be annoying people who want to buy books from Amazon to read on other devices. Simple, don’t buy books from Amazon then.
Notably, a fairly large portion of our readers don’t mind Amazon’s DRM restrictions. 259 votes, or 12% of respondents, are “okay with Amazon’s approach,” while 17.3% remain undecided on their next move.
It’s clear that Amazon’s recent decisions have hit a nerve with the majority of respondents on this poll and potentially its loyal consumer base at large. But what do you think of Amazon’s tighter DRM restrictions on Kindles? Let’s continue the conversation in the comments section below.