Actually, this is the question I intend to ask Amazon.

My kids got serious about reading recently and I went ahead to purchase my third Kindle reader from Amazon. When I ordered the Kindle, I also decided to give the “Kindle Unlimited” a try. They created the membership program called “Kindle Unlimited” since maybe 2014. Basically you pay $10 per month and you can read all the books with the “kindle unlimited” sign for free and if it has the little headset sign on the right, you can also listen to the audio book for free. The key words is “unlimited” and “free”.

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It didn’t take me long to realize that there are something not so ideal for the program.

The top of my list is that the program can not be shared with household members! My wife and I share a Amazon Prime membership, but she can not access my “kindle unlimited” contents. From this perspective, the Apple family share is much better. I could understand their concern they have to make it too loose. Like some people might share Prime membership with non-family members. But come on, you are making the membership less attractive to people want to use it.

The only way that we could both enjoy the unlimited reading is that she sign in with my account. It is not a big deal for us as she uses my account for shopping all the time. But I could imagine for many people it is not convenient. Ideally we would also like to keep the content library separately because we have much different reading interest.

The second thing is about the available books in the program. If you are a big “best seller” fan, you might be disappointed because many of the best sellers are not in the unlimited program. For example, I checked several sub-categories that I read most. Out of the top 20 books, there maybe 1 to 2 in the unlimited program. It is understandable from business point of view as the author enroll in the program to get more exposure to the readers but might get some hit in revenue. Best seller books might not need that extra boost in exposure so they opt out.

Other than that I think it is great value for big readers. I managed to find several interesting books for my family (of course, all with my account) and we are happy reading.

They offer 30 days free trial, I think I might keep the membership when it expires.




What’s your experience with the Kindle Unlimited program? I would like to hear from you.

Why Can’t We Share Kindle Unlimited For Family Members?
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