Yeah, I read the
thread in News, and it's like seeing A Series of Unfortunate Management Decisions. It's probably time to start betting on the deadpool.
IMHO, it's sad for the people who used to be employed by them/are in danger of losing their jobs now, but B&N really have only themselves to blame for making their stuff customer unfriendly* and increasingly less relevant.
It's a shame, because they started off rather promisingly, what with the B&N Classics giveaways in the early days and the regular Free Fridays promo, and the social DRM allowing you to household-share with close family/friends you trusted enough to input your credit card info onto their devices when unlocking the books (and the LendMe option for those you didn't) and their reader being able to take regular ADE-DRM books as well, allowing you to shop wherever you liked (minus Amazon).
* I may still be bitter about Fictionwise.