How Amazon and Microsoft Blew Up Customer Loyalty

How @Microsoft and @Amazon blew up decades of customer loyalty.

My wife’s old @Microsoft Surface Pro 7, the one iFixIt gave a 1 out of 10 for being non repairable, eventually had its battery die. Replacing the battery requires ungluing the fragile screen with heat, disassembling the insides of the notebook, then ungluing the battery and replacing it followed by re-assembly. It was designed as a disposable computer (as we learned). We decided this winter to get a new Surface Pro 11 for her, which now run the Snapdragon ARM-based processor.

One of her big uses of the Surface Pro has been the @Amazon @Kindle app, for her over 600 books. It’s also a light weight travel notebook – handy for email, Internet, Office-type apps and a few other things. While she was traveling, she received a s/w update at some point and that killed her pre-installed KIndle app; the Kindle App no longer works and the version that ran on Snapdragon is no longer available.

(See update – below – it may be that Amazon was not aware they killed existing installs of the Kindle app.)

BECAUSE AMAZON DISCONTINUED SUPPORT FOR THE ARM / SNAPDRAGON PROCESSOR AND KINDLE FOR SURFACE PRO IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. (This is true – but those who had already installed the app were supposedly intended to keep using it.)

This is now a somewhat useless Surface Pro – her primary use was reading Amazon e-books. Amazon knows who is using their app and the systems they are using it on – Amazon should have sent an email letting their customer’s know that Amazon was ending support. But Amazon was unable to do even that!

Amazon quietly and without notice to us, ended two-day Prime benefits to our entire half of the state – without any notice – about 9 months before our Prime membership would end. All shipments now take 5-7 days or up to 3 weeks. We and many others here dropped Prime because of that. (Supposedly they may restore Amazon Prime services in the 2nd half of 2026 after constructing a local distribution center – unclear if we sign up for Prime benefits again though. They’ve lost a LOT of trust.)

These are case studies in how to destroy long time customer loyalty in a matter of minutes. Both Microsoft and Amazon have lost loyalty (25-35 years).

We are considering no longer purchasing online distributed media and returning to CDs and books (I had another bad experience with Apple Music this week – that’s another long story about losing access to digital media you’ve already paid for.)

This corporate behavior-especially by Amazon – disabling primary access to Kindle books is unacceptable.

Yes, she can use the Amazon online reader but only when she has Internet access. The point of the Surface Pro was to take her books with her to places where there may be no Internet access.

I am typing this on a notebook running Ubuntu Linux as I am moving several systems away from Windows and Mac OS. I now have 3 systems running Linux (all older hardware). I have an old Windows 10 desktop that cannot upgrade to Windows 11 (no TPM chip capability) – eventually it will be converted to Linux also.

UPDATE

There are potentially arounds – we have not tried these yet.

1. It is possible to find an older version of the Kindle installer that supports the Snapdragon processor. Such as Download Kindle for PC 2.6 Build 70964 for Windows – FileHorse and also Download Kindle 2.6.70964 for Windows | Uptodown.com (Program ran, displayed the book library, but as soon as one tries to read a book, it wants to update the software so this did not work.)
2. Install and run the Bluestacks Android emulator for Windows. This emulator can run on the Snapdragon processor. Once up and running, install the Android version of the Kindle app. (Bluestacks installed and ran, and within Bluestacks, could access Google Play and download the Android Kindle app, which also ran – BUT, every attempt to read a book said the this version of the Kindle app could not read the books.)
3. Amazon customer service said that the online Kindle for the Web reader enabled one to store a local copy. That is not true; they removed that feature sometime ago! Amazon did acknowledge that the Kindle reader is generally not working on the Surface Pro 11.
4. As of March 4, 2026, posts in an online forum say Amazon was not aware that people had lost their previously working Kindle applications for the Surface Pro 11 and is looking into this.
5. Use an Android tablet. Android still has both Kindle and Nook readers; Barnes and Noble discontinued Nook for PC and Mac and now only offers it for Android and iOS/iPhone devices. This is a good solution (but another device) for e-book access, and an okay solution for Internet and email (if used with a Bluetooth keyboard). This appears to now be the only reliable option – use a tablet device – but that means purchasing and carrying both one’s notebook PC and the tablet.

Customers should not be pushed through hoops like this to have access to their paid-up e-books collection.

We now question the purchase of digital media whose access can go away at any time. Ran into similar issues with Apple iTunes going away and replaced by Apple Music.

Also, it seems Microsoft’s decision to replace the X86 processor with Snapdragon results in a loss to consumers. We will never again purchase a Microsoft hardware product due to this – and that neither Amazon nor Microsoft cares about screwing their customers. This is a very stupid move on their part.