Protection from erasure.

Be aware that the Kindle books we buy from Amazon are not owned by us outright. Only the licence to read them is owned- the book itself remains the property of Amazon. This means that under sufficient political threat, Amazon could simply remove a book from your Kindle, maybe issuing a refund. Maybe not.

This is not complete fantasy. The largest growth markets for digital products are in countries with little free speech such as China and Russia. The threat to block Amazon from domestic markets would be very effective.

Fortunately we have a defence. The device cannot be wiped as long as it is in ‘aeroplane mode’ which also saves on battery life. Unfortunately this means that you may never download another book as long as aeroplane mode remains active, but there is nothing they can do to erase content while your device is isolated from the Internet.