Comment by devilbunny

Yes. And you can sideload without jailbreaking.

They aren’t bricking the devices, they are making them not work with the Amazon store and library features anymore. My Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation device) still works perfectly well with sideloaded books. It’s jailbroken and runs KOReader, which lets you read ePub directly.

It’s easier to read things on my Kindle Keyboard than on my original iPad.