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As someone who has gone from only independent book stores near by to book stores in the malls to Barnes and Noble to Amazon, I've seen the progress. Barnes and Noble put the mall bookstores out of business because they offered a much bigger selection and a much better shopping experience.
Like a lot of companies that think they have it made, Barnes and Noble rested on their laurels and failed to innovate. There is no reason they couldn't have successfully competed with Amazon with regards to online book orders and ebooks. They simply blew it. They could have continued to compete by filling the social niche that many book buyers like, but instead they went in a different direction.
B&N never put indies out of business, at least not the indies around here, especially those that specialize. I continued going to the Science Fiction and Mystery book store for years after B&N and Borders opened up. What put that particular bookstore out of business is the rent got too high where he was and he moved out to the suburbs where most of his clientele wouldn't follow. This is a problem that a lot of small businesses have.
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