The Amazon Kindle War Against Piracy

At least e-Ink screens are becoming cheaper and better so there'll be plenty of alternatives if they block side-loading.

I don't see any incentive for Amazon to do that. Even if you do not buy any books from Amazon you still paid them for the Kindle. And if you have a Kindle you might buy the odd book from them.

Also the Kindle is marketed as allowing you to put your own documents on it.

Yes Amazon want to stop you reading books licensed from then on anything but a Kindle but not the other way around.

I switched from Kindle to Boox. Boox eink tablet can still run Kindle the Android app, but overall it is much better device.

As I understand it they don't make much money from the sale of the Kindle itself as they want to lock you into their ebook ecosystem which is where they make their money. I don't have hard figures though.

They may market it like that now, but that can change. If Google can stop you sideloading apps on Android, I have no doubt Amazon could try to stop you sideloading books on your Kindle.

Kobo is another option too, and it’s easy to control and manage.

This will be a nice foundation for an anti trust case.

1) sell device at break even/loss to gain market share

2) retrospectively lock out all content not from amazon

Now you just need a legal system that will pursue anti trust cases

Where are you going to get the books from, if Amazon doesn't let you download them?

And before that you need a congress that will pass legislation to prevent such cases or even allow existing laws to be applied by not actively intervening.

Kobo, Google Play Books, smaller niche sites like Baen, Humble Bundle, J-novel club, etc.

They let you download books with no DRM (or with DRM that works with any reader)?

Some have no DRM, like Baen, most Humble Bundles and J-novel club. Most books on Kobo/Google Play have DRM but it's really really easy to remove.

Second this. It's got an Onyx Boox and it's been amazing.

+1. I have two Boox devices and they're both excellent. One is a 10 inch reader that's quite thin, and the other is essentially the equivalent of an e-ink phone. Where to buy books is still a challenge for me, though. So far I've been relying on my decrypted library that I've been buying over the years, but now that Amazon closed that hole, I'm no longer buying from them.

What are the best alternatives for Kindle store?

I don't have a good answer for you, I'm afraid. I'm gonna be looking into alternative stores that still allow you to download the files. I've never worked with Kobo before, but I heard that that could work. Google Play can work. And there's always Anna's archive, that's kind of a last resort for me. I prefer to pay for high-quality copies than get some scanned low-quality version, but publishers don't want to sell me a file anymore.

In the worst case, you can always buy it from Amazon and download it from Annas Archive

Or buy the physical book, download from AA, and give the book to charity when you’re done.

I don't want to give Amazon money for its anticonsumer practices, though, so I'll need to find something else.

Did the same. The Kindle app has a page-turn effect that can't be turned off, though, so I switched to KOReader. Unintuitive interface but fantastic for book reading.

ebooks.com, kobo.com or the publisher's website.