Quote:
Originally Posted by Shane R
Who was BN targeting with their device?
They were not going to leach Amazon customers. And I doubt it had much appeal to the general public as the general public isn't visiting book stores anymore and didn't have much loyalty to the BN brand.
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They didn't need to reach the general public, they needed to reach readers, and readers do tend to go to bookstores. To the most die-hard e-book fans, it may seem that no one went to book stores, but that's not necessarily reality. Amazon users may not be likely to switch to B&N, but a few years ago, Amazon wasn't nearly as dominant. With better business decisions, B&N could have competed much more effectively.
The publishers keep grumbling against Amazon, and there is one thing they can do to undermine Amazon. If people switch from Amazon to Kobo, B&N or whoever, allow them to keep their books. It would be simple to do, for each book put out by that publisher that someone purchased from Amazon, grant a license for that book on their new reader. It wouldn't actually COST the publishers anything. This would make it easier to switch away from Amazon, and help ensure that that Amazon had plausible competition.