Quote:
Originally Posted by ProfCrash
If people were only buying the device, it doesn't matter. They are selling the device at cost or even a loss. They can only do that if people buy their books from BN. The more prolific readers, the people who need/want the SD card slot, are more likely to be people who know where to get books they can sideload on to the Nook and probably did not buy that many books from BN.
So getting rid of the SD card slot probably does not hurt BN because the people who were using it were less likely to buy books from BN. And since they are not making money off the device, who cares if they don't buy the Nook?
Studies show that people who buy the Kindle and Kindle Fire buy a ton more from Amazon. They can afford to sell the devices at cost or a loss because they are going to make, on average, $5,000 more per year from that person. BN cannot say the same thing.
Granted, Amazon sells more stuff then BN but that is how Amazon makes its money off the devices. If BN noticed that people who are using the SD card (and I am not sure if they can track that) are not buying books from BN then why keep it?
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Keeping the SD slot may not save them, and dropping it may not kill them, but I think that trying to make people "more tied to BN" is one of the things that will eventually finish them off, if they don't improve the experience of buying from them.
Every ebook purchase involves a price, convenience, time, quality of experience, security, and privacy tradeoff. I gave buying from B&N a try, it didn't work for me compared to Amazon, who I would happily leave for something better. My personal experience doesn't matter to Amazon or B&N, but there seem to be overwhelmingly more in my camp than the opposite. Some companies can thrive with a tiny market share but it does not look like B&N is one of them.