You mean a single-use device made of paper, that you have to wait to be shipped if buying online? I agree, that's terrible :)
My Kindle died on me. All my books that were from Amazon are still available:
1. for download to the Kindle app on my computer
2. for download to the Kindle app on my phone
3. for download in a format I can read (and deDRM and convert) with Calibre
The ones that weren't from Amazon were on my computer before they were ever on the Kindle, so they're still there, along with the ones I backed up.
You mean a single-use device made of paper, that you have to wait to be shipped if buying online? I agree, that's terrible :)