My Amazon Echo devices no longer work. I'd largely stopped using them, though, with the exception of playing some white noise when I go to bed. There's probably a few obscure smart home routines that will be broken now, but I made a point of migrating away from using their ecosystem at all, so whatever's left is stuff I don't really use anyway.
I think my old Kindle will still work, but it's basically frozen in terms of content. The jailbreak methods available don't work on that model, and I don't think I've used it at all in the past five years anyway.
And I can't order anything from them without setting up a new account. I'm sure I'll run into something that's ONLY available through Amazon at some point, but I'm sure I can have my wife order that if it comes to that. I'd largely made a point of not ordering from them back in the early part of the year anyway. I was actually annoyed at one point when I ordered something through a company website to avoid using Amazon, and it turns out they used Amazon fulfillment anyway. The last thing I can recall actually ordering from them was a gift card for a relative back in late 2024.
Anyway, this whole thing emphasizes to me that A) any technology you rely on should not be dependent on the cloud, and B) any/all companies that can act like the proverbial 800 lb gorilla WILL act like an 800 lb gorilla the second they even think you've done something against their interests and you are SOL. This is the real enshitification -- the products/services don't just keep getting worse, they will cut you off from whatever crap service they provide the moment you're no longer profitable to them.
@SKleefeld@retro.pizza
Hi! Just found your post and decided that I totally agree with you. I stopped using Amazon last year and I feel really good. Only my daughters from time to time need something from Amazon that my wife takes care of. She also greatly reduced her spending there.
I also buy from Aliexpress, just to find out that once in my Country, shipments are handled by Amazon.
My next year's resolution is to try buying directly from vendor's e-commerce services.
As for cloud services, I still agree completely. I'm trying to get independent from Google and so far it is going fine. From "cloud" itself is a bit more difficult, but definitely possible. Currently I'm experimenting apps to avoid use of Nextcloud or similar services. I'm done with using someone else's storage and CPU to handle my own personal data. Not going to happen again, unless I have no choice nor alternatives.
Sean Kleefeld