Amazon Just Sent Its Most Loyal Kindle Customers the Worst Thank-You Note of All Time

The company is cutting off its oldest Kindle models starting next month.

EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN

Jeff Bezos, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., holds an Amazon.com Kindle DX during a news conference in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 6, 2009. Amazon, trying to broaden the appeal of its Kindle electronic reader, unveiled a larger version that’s designed for newspapers and textbooks. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News

As a general rule, sending an email to customers that starts with “thank you” is a nice gesture. There’s something delightful about a company expressing appreciation to its customers just for being customers. Of course, “thank you” is only meaningful if whatever you say next makes the recipient feel like you value their business.

Take, for example, an email Amazon is sending customers who own the first several generations of Kindle devices. “Thank you for being a longtime Kindle customer,” Amazon writes. “We’re glad our devices have served you well for as long as they have.”

That all sounds nice, but what comes next is why this is probably the worst thank-you note a company could possibly send.

“Starting May 20, 2026–14 to 18 years after their initial launches—we are discontinuing support for Kindle devices released in 2012 or earlier,” the email continues.

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Yes, Amazon just sent some of its most loyal Kindle customers a thank-you note to tell them that, starting May 20, 2026, their devices are effectively obsolete. That doesn’t really feel like a thank you, especially for someone who has been using a Kindle for more than a decade.

Amazon is cutting off old Kindles

Amazon says that it is cutting off Kindle Store access for any device released in 2012 or earlier — the original Kindle, the Kindle DX, Kindle Keyboard, Kindle 4, Kindle Touch, Kindle 5, and the first-generation Paperwhite. You can still read the books already on your device, but you can’t buy new ones. And, if you ever reset or deregister the device, it becomes useless. You’ll never be able to use it again.

The company makes the point that these devices are 14 to 18 years old, and that’s true. That is an extraordinary run for consumer hardware. It’s understandable that, eventually, the company would have to end support. That’s not really the problem. The problem here is what this email reveals about how Amazon thinks about its most committed customers.

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