Completely agree with your first point, the company's hollow in more ways than one. I would have said their long tail demand for obscure books could save their online and spare the in-store overhead, but I don't think their online is all that.
Another poster mentioned coffee, and that's easily the most crowded section of my B&N (It's a Starbucks, which I assume most are). Starbucks pushed the lifestyle to relax and hang out in store, and it makes sense that it worked its way into B&N. But don't you think this is somewhat at odds with the company's goal? Surely they want people to hang around and enjoy themselves, but they can't position themselves as a library. And now I'm imagining libraries with Starbucks in them...Hmmm. Actually a Starbucks opened right near that B&N recently, complete cannibalization. Time will tell if it sucks B&N's lifeblood, but B&N isn't looking to hot in my eyes.
But Gamestop, of course they won't last in this shifting marketplace, I think management is keeping it lean enough to have longer legs (than Barnes) though. It's just the business they're in, they can have a lot of small stores for wide coverage, and they know when to shut 'em down. A B&N closing is proportionately a harder blow to B&N underlying. Maybe I'm underestimating the adoption rate of digital gaming, but I'm reminded of e-book hype which wasn't a TKO IMO.
