If I walk into a bookstore and buy a book, I will leave the store with the book, which will be mine forever. I can read it, lend it to other people, resell it, or give it as a gift.
It’s mine, forever.
I am a happy user of a Kindle Paperwhite. I love that device. I have purchased something like two thousand books over the years.
Well, non of those books is mine. I paid for them. Sometimes I pay less than for a physical book. Sometimes less. Nevertheless, I spent.
If you read carefully (who does?), the Kindle Store Terms of Use you will read this:
Use of Kindle Content. Upon your download or access of Kindle Content and payment of any applicable fees (including applicable taxes), the Content Provider grants you a non-exclusive right to view, use, and display such Kindle Content (for Subscription Content, only as long as you remain an active member of the underlying membership or subscription program), solely through Kindle Software or as otherwise permitted as part of the Service, solely on the number of Supported Devices specified in the Kindle Store, and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider. The Content Provider may include additional terms for use within its Kindle Content. Those terms will also apply, but this Agreement will govern in the event of a conflict. Some Kindle Content, such as interactive or highly formatted content, may not be available to you on all Kindle Software.
Limitations. Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights to the Kindle Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove or modify any proprietary notices or labels on the Kindle Content. In addition, you may not attempt to bypass, modify, defeat, or otherwise circumvent any digital rights management system or other content protection or features used as part of the Service.
I don’t own the book. I own the right to read it, as far as I am an Amazon customer and a Kindle user.