This could be what finally forces Amazon to open up its Kindle ecosystem

For a long time, the Amazon Kindle has gone unchallenged on a serious level. There were e-readers launched prior to the original 2007 Kindle model, and many competing devices have shipped since — but in the US and Canada, those rival products have typically become also-rans in terms of sales. While it’s perfectly viable to buy a Kobo or a Nook, the default e-reader for the masses is a Kindle.

Things have taken an interesting twist in the past few years, however. There’s a burgeoning market for e-ink tablets — that is, e-ink devices that do a lot more than let you read Slaughterhouse Five. You can take notes, annotate documents, and even sketch out some art if you’ve got the skill. Amazon joined the game with the Kindle Scribe in 2022, and yet the tech giant’s competition actually seems to be intensifying. In fact, most critics would point to the reMarkable Paper Pro as a better product for notetaking, and some models now run Android, like the Boox Note Air4 C — so users aren’t stuck with a single bookstore, or importing generic web, PDF, and EPUB material.

Mounting pressure has me wondering if it might force Amazon to crack open the Kindle’s limitations a little, and make it easier to access content that doesn’t come from the Kindle Store. I doubt it, personally, although it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

How rival e-ink tablets are bringing the heat

Flexibility matters

E-ink tablets diminish Amazon’s main advantage with standard e-readers: content control. People normally flock to Kindles because of the Kindle Store, which tends to offer the biggest selection. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get a selection of free books via Prime Reading, and you can pay for an Audible or Kindle Unlimited subscription if that’s not enough (and you live in a supported country).

When the focus shifts to features beyond reading, Amazon is forced to compete more on its own merits, not its publisher deals. To the company’s credit, a lot of people do like the notetaking tools on the Scribe, but other products are already offering superior versions of them in some ways. reMarkable, for instance, lets you use Chrome, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive for syncing files, instead of just Kindle apps/extensions or Microsoft Word on the Scribe. And of course, Android tablets like the Note Air4 C are effectively unlimited in the number of tools and file sources they can access, even if some are better suited to an e-ink device than others.

Indeed, it’s hard to overstate how important Android is for e-ink tablets, or at least how important it could be. With access to everything on the Google Play Store, even Amazon’s content advantage falls by the wayside. Kobo books become just as accessible as Kindle titles, and you’re free to read all the indie and library releases you can get your hands on. There’s no threat of having to leave a collection behind, either, which is something that’s kept people locked into the Kindle ecosystem — if you’ve bought dozens of Kindle books, you’re not going to want to lose access to that library just because a new device might be technically superior.

Speaking of which, rival specs are ahead of Amazon’s hardware in some cases. The biggest gap seems to be color — Amazon’s lone color e-ink device is the reading-only Kindle Colorsoft, despite some competing products having had the technology for years. It’s hard to be worked up by a Kindle Scribe when its display technology isn’t much different from what we had a decade ago.

One way or another, Amazon is going to have to step up its game to remain at the forefront. But could that translate into looser software restrictions on non-Kindle content, in a bid to draw in more device shoppers?

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Stuck in a rut

The odds are ever in Amazon’s favor

I wouldn’t expect Amazon to open things up in the near future, at least. The company still controls around 68% of global ebook sales, according to Good e-Reader, with sales of Kindle devices making up 70% of the current e-reader market. That’s a lot of leeway in Amazon’s favor, even if the company might be taking a glance over its shoulder. And with the Kindle platform’s lock-in, there’s probably little worry about customers fleeing.

On top of that, there’s only so much potential for the new wave of e-ink tablets. While they’re proliferating at the moment, they’re also inherently niche. They’re targeted at users who prefer a tactile, paper-like experience for notes, reading, and annotation — simply with some of the conveniences of a digital platform. Given that they often cost as much or more than a conventional tablet, many people are naturally going to stick with an LCD or OLED device they can run all their apps on, no matter if that means eye strain, weaker battery life, and a less satisfying stylus. You buy an e-ink tablet in addition to a laptop or iPad, not to replace one. If all you care about is reading, a cheaper reading-only e-ink product probably makes more sense.

If Android e-ink tablets do somehow become a runaway hit, Amazon is still poised to capitalize to a degree. Buyers have access to non-Kindle catalogs, but the scope of the Kindle Store and Kindle Unlimited is still bound to draw in many ebook shoppers. You might pick up some comics and graphic novels on Google Play Books, but you’ll be tempted to return to the Kindle app to check out the latest Unlimited additions or new bestsellers.

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What the future holds

Some final thoughts

The more I think about it, the more pessimistic I am about Amazon liberating its ecosystem voluntarily. Freedom isn’t how Amazon became a trillion-dollar megacorporation — it’s by incentivizing people to stay within a walled garden, much like Apple, Google, or Meta. I still have a Prime subscription despite my misgivings about Amazon’s practices, mostly because of how much it would cost to get similar benefits elsewhere.

If there’s hope for a more flexible Kindle, it’s in two things — the need to respond to customer demand, and the growing legal challenges to digital monopolies. Like Apple and Google, Amazon is facing scrutiny from antitrust investigators, with a US Federal Trade Commission case still due to go to trial in 2026. Though that’s related to general online sales, it does look bad that the Kindle platform remains locked down. Loosening its grip might earn it a little goodwill from both governments and customers.

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