The devices were supported for more than a decade. Sure, this forced deprecation isn’t great but it’s still had a longer lifetime than many other devices.
I’ll happily keep reading on my kindle, it’s the most ergonomic way of reading for me especially when traveling. I get that there are other options like Kobo, but I don’t see it as significantly better than the Kindles. And I like the fact that I can also use the iPad and iPhone apps for kindle to read on the go if I don’t have the physical kindle with me.
IIRC, part of the original sales pitch was replacing physical books, for whatever reason one might like to do that. I did it because I was doing a LOT of travel.
I haven't had a job that requires travel in a long time, so looking at it from that perspective, having my library also require some kind of additional device maintenance cycle or whatever really adds a layer of complexity I don't want to deal with, so depending on what options I have and what I'm buying, I'm finding myself these days purchasing physical books more frequently just to avoid the hassle for future me.
Also Kobo's ecosystem exhibits many of the same DRM problems that Amazon has. The majority of book publishers still require DRM. You get DRM locked copies regardless of if you buy them from Amazon or Kobo (or Google Play Store).
Some of this post just seems that an "Android Authority" only just now realized there are less-forked Android-based e-readers versus Kindle and they feel happier with the Android ecosystem (and its DRM) than Amazon's. To me it feels a bit like a choice between Purple Drazi and Green Drazi. Many of the same problems but a different ascot color.