A lot of people have started switching from Kindles to Kobos this past year because of Amazon making changes to the Kindle platform and locking down Kindle ebooks more than ever, but has the Kobo platform started to reach the enshittification stage as well?
I can’t help but notice a number of things changing for the worse with Kobo over the past couple of years. It’s getting to the point where there are more negative changes than positive changes. It’s not on the same level as Amazon, but there are a lot of little things that are steadily getting worse with Kobo too.
It seems like Kobo has been resting on their laurels for years now. There was a time when they were regularly expanding their store into more countries and taking over other failed ebook stores, but that hasn’t happened in a long time. And their ebook catalog is seriously lacking in some areas, especially when it comes to color content for their color ereaders, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.
Furthermore, they have the most uncreative sales strategy ever. When it comes to deals on Kobo ereaders, they just keep doing the same $20 off sales a few times a year. They never do “big” sales. Even their Black Friday sales are just the same old $20 off deals that they always do. They never do trade-in deals or special upgrade promotions for long-time customers. They used to offer a lot of coupon codes for discounts on ebooks, but now the codes are much less frequent and less effective and they usually only apply to a certain list of books.
Evidence of a Decline
Kobo ereaders no longer support using multiple libraries through OverDrive. They removed the OverDrive login option awhile back so it’s no longer possible to use multiple library cards.
Kobo has raised the prices of their ereaders post release twice in the past two years now. People can point the finger at tariffs for this, but the fact is Amazon hasn’t raised the price of Kindles and Barnes and Noble hasn’t raised the price of Nooks during the same time frame.
Kobo refuses to release new BW models, despite countless requests for a Libra BW from customers. Right now Kobo only sells one current BW model. The Elipsa 2E had an outdated screen when it was released two years ago, and the Kobo Sage is 4 years old now and they stopped selling it in the US months ago.
Kobo’s price match guarantee is no longer guaranteed on certain books.
Kobo’s software updates have gone downhill over the past two years, with fewer new features getting added and more bugs getting introduced. They’ve only released one main update over the past year, when they used to release updates every few months, and the latest software update notoriously bricked a number of devices. To Kobo’s credit, I’ve seen a few reports of people getting sent new Kobos because of that, but it doesn’t look like they’ve actually fixed the problem with the software update yet.
They added some new accessibility features, including a screen reader, but it turns out they are very difficult to use and require different software with less features than the standard software, and the accessibility software is only available in Europe for some reason.
Kobo’s US distribution has worsened since their Walmart partnership ended. Now they only have one US partner, BlueProton, who regularly charges above MSRP for Kobo’s devices in the US. And they aren’t available in any retail stores to test before buying. Kobo launched their own Amazon store earlier this year, but they inexplicably don’t sell their ereaders from there, only covers.
Kobo no longer allows refunds on downloaded ebooks. On one hand this seems logical, but the problem is Kobo ereaders and apps automatically download ebooks after you purchase them, and once that happens you can no longer get a refund.
No more cash back on purchased ebooks and audiobooks. This seems to be another recent change for the worse.
