> I don't really understand why there really aren't any reputable companies in the Android e-ink tablet space, and I also don't understand why Google themselves seem to have absolutely no interest in Android for this use case.

Just guessing, but maybe they did the market research and the audience isn’t big enough. After all, e-ink devices are primarily for consuming large amounts of text, and most peoples’ reading these days is short form, multimedia content (articles, blogs, lists, slideshows, social media posts, explainer videos, etc.) which is better suited to existing phones and tablets.

I’m still among those who read book-length content, but far less than I did in years past. I’d say the actual number of words I read every year has gone up, but the number of 300+ page books I read has gone down.

The upside is, I’m much more selective about the books I do read and mostly only read excellent ones.