Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#101

Post by justsomehnguy » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:29 PM UTC

mh- wrote: post #74

sbarre wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect at least some of this comes from publisher pressure. An acquaintance works for one of the big global book publishers and his general sense from upper management is that they still hate having to sell digital books. It feels like the last major media industry that is holding out against a "future" that has been here for a long time already.

It's all from external pressure. Amazon spending energy on ebook DRM is a negative ROI activity for them. A vanishingly small % of would-be ebook buyers even know pirated ones exist, and an even smaller one knows how to get those onto their Kindle. My wife buys dozens of ebooks per year on Amazon, her friends too. I'm guessing if I poll that group, none of them would even know where to start, nor care to.

"Piracy is almost always a service problem" is also true. I see a lot of people who were risen on a pirated .mp3 and .epub to move to the streaming platforms just because it's a bit more convenient.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#102

Post by boznz » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:29 PM UTC

fooqux wrote: post #66

asveikau wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped doing Kindle purchases in the last few years because I sensed they were going in this direction. There are tons of vendors that will give you an epub of most titles. They often come with Adobe DRM but the UX of breaking that is even easier than how it used to be with Kindle.

Sadly the Kindle Unlimited program has gotten so popular that if you wish to read anything independent, you basically can't without using Kindle.

I also make my ePubs a free download off my website which prevents me as an author enrolling in this. So just about anything on Kindle Unlimited is only for their ecosystem.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#103

Post by boznz » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

Combined with the announcement that they're killing the old Kindles as well...this is 100% about preventing people from liberating DRM from their books. Full stop. They are closing each and every remaining hole.

Not necessarily? There was a post just a year ago on how somebody jailbroke the kindle books from the web UI. I think the more plausible and likely explanations are: 1. Kindles take a beating when people actually use them instead of putting them in a drawer. Not many older kindles are still in circulation that are old + used. How good is a 14 year old lithium battery at best doing? 2. Added to the above, how is a 14…

an ePub book is basically a zipped HTML folder with static pictures and text. A 18 year old kindle can still render it easily. I expect Amazon are adding a lot more DRM and hoops than required. I also noticed if you havent read a book you downloaded for a while it wont let you read it again without re-connecting. Just glad I pulled everything onto my PC and Kobo a few years back. Agree the PC interface is pretty crappy though.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#104

Post by MrGreenTea » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:37 PM UTC

cyberpunk wrote: post #54

wrxd wrote: post #12

I’m so happy I downloaded all my Kindle books when I still had a chance and then moved to the Kobo ecosystem, which albeit not perfect is much much better

I was kinda amazed to find out how hard it was to buy a kobo libra colour in .de -- apparently there's some kind of cartel thing going on where amazon somehow convince entire markets not to sell their competitors products. I had to order it from Hungary or something iirc.

I don't know if that is Amazon in Germany. Here all the book stores sell Tolino devices, even my local libraries loan them out.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#105

Post by boznz » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC

chromacity wrote: post #45

shrubble wrote: post #26

After Anthropic wholesale pirated millions of books, and got only a slap on the wrist and no jail time, and Meta did almost the same, I've decided that "Anna's" plus used physical books plus printed new books are the right combination.

It's kinda poetic that in the entire process, authors get screwed thrice. First, by the publishers and retailers, who keep 80% of the revenue. Then, by the hacker culture that enables widespread, institutionalized book piracy for the sake of "information wanting to be free". And finally, by the same hacker culture gone corporate, where "grown-up" geeks conclude that, since we already have all these pirated works out…

Too true, and with 1000's of new books added daily, new authors are lost in the noise. Writing is a lifestyle choice and a hobby, you will need to be very lucky, have a strong following or be pushed by a big publishing house to make any money from it, even successful indie authors will earn in a year what a good programmer earns in a day.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#106

Post by aeonik » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:46 PM UTC

cyberpunk wrote: post #57

stryan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can copy physical books for storage/otherwise personal use IIRC so it's not quite as locked down as a DRMd book. Not sure what the legal state of hand copying a book and then loaning it out as it probably doesn't come up much.

I mean really? Oh I can't see someone heading down to the copy shop to scan every page of war and peace and then print it out when you can get a used one for less than the paper cost..

Growing up, in school, teachers would do this all the time with our text books.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#107

Post by fooqux » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

boznz wrote: post #102

fooqux wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly the Kindle Unlimited program has gotten so popular that if you wish to read anything independent, you basically can't without using Kindle.

I also make my ePubs a free download off my website which prevents me as an author enrolling in this. So just about anything on Kindle Unlimited is only for their ecosystem.

Thank you for this. I can understand why many authors don't want to do this (running a store, etc) but I wish they all did. I'll take a gander; I could use some more sci-fi!

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#108

Post by jm4 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

vlod wrote: post #65

wrxd wrote: post #12

I’m so happy I downloaded all my Kindle books when I still had a chance and then moved to the Kobo ecosystem, which albeit not perfect is much much better

Would you mind elaborating on the problems you have with the Kobo? I'm thinking of getting one of these once my kindle dies.

No issues here. I liberated my kindle library and put it in Google Drive. The Kobo can download books from there out of the box. The Kobo store works fine too, although a lot of books barely have any reviews if you’re into that. I have the Kobo Libra Colour and it’s by far the best reader I’ve ever owned.

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#109

Post by Boss0565 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:57 PM UTC

not_your_vase wrote: post #81

tim333 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it'll actually work? At the moment you can pretty much go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis and download whatever.

Probably it will have a very measurable effect. By every day it gets a bit harder to discover such services - if you know, you know. If you have to ask, you have already lost. Also, AI chatbots outright refuse to give any answer that is remote related to piracy (or any adjacent topics). Since they take over the role of search engines, that's also a big factor IMO.

eh... if you word it correctly, an ai chatbot will tell you everything it knows about piracy lol

Re: Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th

#110

Post by Unlocked5170 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

fooqux wrote: post #66

asveikau wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped doing Kindle purchases in the last few years because I sensed they were going in this direction. There are tons of vendors that will give you an epub of most titles. They often come with Adobe DRM but the UX of breaking that is even easier than how it used to be with Kindle.

Sadly the Kindle Unlimited program has gotten so popular that if you wish to read anything independent, you basically can't without using Kindle.

Honestly, I think the Kindle Unlimited (KU) program should be persecuted as an illegal monopoly. A lot of authors actually don't actually like it, but they have to do it because it is the only way to have viable income. This tends to happen with more niche genres though. As an example almost all books in the harem-lit (1 guy and a bunch of lovers) genre are tied to Kindle unlimited. Meanwhile, this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy as pushing more readers to KU and thus making alternative methods of selling even more difficult. Though since KU forces exclusivity on only being sold through Amazon, the authors are forced to switch to it.

I could probably go on a similar rant with Audible too, but that is different story. In short, Amazon has way too much influence over the entire publishing industry.