Amazon (AMZN) is in focus today, primarily for reasons unrelated to its customer base. The tech conglomerate has announced that its Amazon Web Services (AWS) arm has formed a new group dedicated to developing agentic artificial intelligence (AI) and the tech world is buzzing.
But that’s not the only current Amazon story that matters today. The company recently made a move that’s gone largely undetected, except maybe by some consumers, who likely aren’t happy at the discovery.
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For many Amazon users, a feature that helped increase the popularity of a beloved product is no longer available. While reports warned that it would disappear after February 2025, few people likely took note.
Now this key feature is gone and some Amazon customers may be considering other options for an extremely popular pastime.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos holds the new Amazon tablet called the Kindle Fire on September 28, 2011 in New York City. The company is making a major change that will severely impact Kindle users. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Amazon makes a bold move that may come back to haunt it
Late in February 2025, headlines flashed across tech newswires that Amazon had plans to eliminate a popular feature for Kindle users: the ability to download Kindle book files to a personal computer.
“You have until Feb. 26, 2025, to download copies of your Kindle books to your computer. After that, Amazon will remove the ability to download books to files you can control yourself,” warned a report from ZDNET.
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The article also noted that Amazon’s primary Digital Content management interface did not highlight this upcoming change. This indicates that the many users who read digital books either on their Kindle e-reader device or in the app likely didn’t learn about this change until it had taken effect.
Now that date is past and Amazon appears to have entered a new era for Kindle users.
This likely won’t play well with Kindle owners, particularly as it essentially takes power out of their hands. After paying for a digital book, it makes sense that someone would want to be able to do whatever they want with it, such as downloading it to a home computer or tablet.
History tells us readers aren’t happy when Amazon changes their Kindle libraries without telling them. In 2009, the company drew ire when it unexpectedly deleted George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles, leading to a lawsuit.
Much more recently, Puffin Books sparked a strong backlash in 2023 when it made changes to multiple popular children’s ebooks by Roald Dahl, censoring certain words on Kindle e-reader files.
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“When people were able to keep their own copies of books, they had that instrument of record, ZDNET notes. “But when books are changed on the fly, and we can’t see the previous versions anymore, it’s possible to rewrite history.”
What does this mean for Amazon and for Kindle?
There’s no question that the Kindle has been a smashing success for Amazon. When it first released the digital e-reader on November 19, 2007, it sold out in less than six hours and remained out of stock for months.
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More than fifteen years later, the Kindle has transformed how people across the globe read and discover new books. It has gone through many updates and remained a popular choice, even as bookstores struggled to keep their doors open.
However, this move to limit consumers’ power may concern book lovers, prompting them to seek other alternatives. Given Amazon’s history of deleting some books and censoring others, it seems logical that stopping users from downloading books to a home computer might be concerning.
People still want to read, but they likely want complete freedom over their books and other e-reader devices, which may be more appealing now.
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