You could but Kobo devices expected you to log in with a Kobo or other partner account (Rakuten, FNAC, etc.) on first setup. This allows you to bypass the need for any account and just sideload books on. You could previously hack around this but it sometimes caused issues.
I guess I do vaguely remember creating an account. Hmm... It must have been painless because I don't remember it. I know that it's not on any Wi-Fi network now so it has functioned for about a year with no network connectivity, at least.
Edit: I remember now. Looking down in the comments here dislodged the memory that I did the "add a row to an SQLite database" hack to prevent the need for account creation.
