I haven't found any membership fees with my Kindle. Of course I still have one of the older ones, but it serves my purpose of reading books just fine and probably have close to 1800 books downloaded and they have all been free books to download. I can't begin to tell you how many I have already read, the 1800 is what I have on my Kindle to read and it goes everywhere with me, especially to dr's office where you wait, wait and wait. Sure passes the time away. Have thought about a Kindle Fire and looked into a tablet etc., but still like my laptop to take with me as I do genealogy work and it is much better than the smaller devices that you can't use a cd in. I would not part with my Kindle, my sister-in-law has the Nook and I think my Kindle is much easier to use. Just my opinion of course.
I am not sure I want to upgrade to the new Kindle Fire HD. I have a friend who has one and I have not been impressed with it as I don't play a lot of games like some people. Yes the pixel of ink and Book E-bub both have free books and also reduced price books and one can get e-books from the library for a limited period of time as well. Sure beats buying even at garage sales and then all the clutter of the books laying around and finding someone to pass them on to. If you don't like a book after you start reading it, you can delete it from your Kindle and go to another one. I LUVVVVVV it! I had not heard they were going out of fashion even with the I-pads and tablets. They still serve their place in the line up of things.