Survey reveals 80% would jailbreak their Kindle before letting Amazon win

Kindles, unlike phones, don’t get updated hardware every so often, and that makes it both convenient and satisfying to hold them for years, and sometimes, even decades. I’ve held my fourth-gen Paperwhite for more than eight years now, and the only occasional gripe I have with it is its microUSB port. Similarly, my colleague Dhruv Bhutani has held his Oasis for close to 10 years now. Even though the lack of regular updates is a bit concerning, it doesn’t hamper our usage at all. And that’s why Amazon’s recently implemented move to effectively turn older Kindle devices into paperweights hasn’t sat well with most owners.

Previously, Android Authority readers responded to another survey where the majority were unhappy with the move. But instead of letting Amazon turn their beloved ereaders into dead weights, users are opting for the option that breathes life into them. As we recently learned by scouring through Reddit threads, Kindle users are exploring ways to jailbreak their Kindle readers, so they could install a custom firmware and break free of Amazon’s crutches, while still being able to use their older, and still functional, ereaders.

A similar sentiment is echoed in another of our surveys, where we asked for their thoughts on jailbreaking their Kindle.

Would you jailbreak your Kindle? Our readers certainly would!

Unexpectedly, a large percentage of the nearly 5,000 respondents in our surveys said they were exploring the option to break free from Amazon’s shackles.

About 60% of those who participated in the survey said they were already considering jailbreaking their Kindle devices, while another 22% said they were intrigued by the option but wanted to learn more about the process.

Only a small chunk, 6%, said they weren’t willing to lose their peace over privacy-related concerns, while roughly 12% people said they didn’t own Kindle devices.

We also got some spirited comments about Amazon’s decisions. One reader, jaredcastello, said “I’ll riot the day they drop support for my Oasis.” Another one, gary.hitchen, pointed to a win-win (or rather a no-loss) scenario and said:

Given that Amazon are going to make them useless I can’t see what there is to lose by jailbreaking.

If I brick it, it’s useless, if I don’t try, it’s useless.

A few other folks had different ideas. One of them, ca.libertarian, highlighted how new Kindles have gotten much better in terms of technology over the last 10 years, and people shouldn’t resist upgrading to one, especially given their low cost.

Meanwhile, another reader, zakirx, highlights that while there are some other useful alternatives, they aren’t as affordable as base Kindle devices, in the part of the world where they live.

Overall, despite the outliers, we can draw a common theme here, and it screams that people are unwilling to let Amazon dictate what they should do with their devices.