Amazon removed Kindle buttons—now sells them back for $35

Amazon’s redesigned Kindle lineup is flat, seamless and dressed in colours with names like ube, alpine sky and seaglass green. One thing is missing from the spec sheet: a physical page-turn button. That is not an accident. Amazon has spent years removing the button, and now it is selling the click back to readers.

From standard feature to paid accessory

Physical buttons were once a staple of Kindle design. Amazon began phasing them out with the Kindle Touch in 2011, and in October 2024 it discontinued the Kindle Oasis, the last model with built-in page-turn buttons. A 2025 Double Tap to Page Turn gesture arrived for the 2024 Paperwhite and Colorsoft, but it only moves forward, not back.

Now the fix is a purchase. Amazon has introduced an $80 Page-Turn Cover, available only on Special Edition models, and a $35 Kindle Bluetooth clicker. Both are accessories for a problem the company itself created by removing built-in buttons. That is a classic unbundling move: strip a feature out, then offer it back as a premium.

The psychology behind the click

This works because product expectations are flexible. New buyers have no memory of the button, so they don’t feel its absence. Long-time readers, on the other hand, feel the loss sharply. That difference lets a brand monetise habits without raising the base price.

• Loss aversion: Existing users feel the missing button more than new buyers ever will.
• Anchoring: An $80 cover makes the $35 clicker look like a reasonable middle option.
• Feature nostalgia: Tactile feedback becomes a speciality instead of a standard.

You see the same pattern when airlines charge for seat selection that used to be included, or when software moves a once-free feature into a paid tier. The base product stays simpler and cheaper; the lost utility becomes an upsell.

What this means for marketers

Amazon says Kindle sales have grown at a double-digit rate for three straight years, and readers burned through more than 720 billion pages in 2025. At that scale, even a small attach rate on a $35 clicker or $80 cover becomes a meaningful revenue line.

But the tactic has a limit. If loyal customers experience it as a tax on their habits, goodwill drains faster than revenue grows. The stronger version is to keep the base product feeling complete, make the add-on genuinely useful, and watch whether heavy users adopt it or complain about it.

Source: Fast Company