Ask LH: Why Are My Kindle Paperwhite Ads Irrelevant?


Dear Lifehacker, Recently I bought a new Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday and I have been in love with it since day 1. When I purchased it, I bought the “special offers” version for the lower cost under the notion that I could save some money on the purchase and also save money on books that took my fancy. However, upon trying to access the special offers, I noticed that most of them don’t apply to me, only to US Customers. Is it fair that I’m being used to made money for an item with advertising but I can’t access the advertising at all? If I’d known this was the case, I’d have spent the extra $20 and gone ad-free. Thanks, Concerned Kindler

Dear LH,

To be honest, it sounds unfair to the advertiser — the money they’re paying to Amazon to claim a small portion of your eyeballs is wasted. This might be why Amazon only officially sells the ad-free to Australian address. You can work around this (and you obviously did), but it’s not totally surprising that the content is irrelevant. Much of Amazon’s content is region-fenced, and its advertising is too.

The lesson here? Be cautious when importing ad-supported products. But don’t stress too much — you still have a fine e-reader, and you do have $20 you can spend on extra titles for it.

Cheers
Lifehacker

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