Respectfully — it aged exactly as I predicted.

The post wasn’t about whether B&N would still exist. It was about how it would survive, and who would (and wouldn’t) be valued in that process.

James Daunt did what I said he’d do well — cut the co-op stranglehold, decentralize inventory, and bring curation back to the local level. Those moves saved the company operationally.

But my central point stands untouched: you can’t build a healthy book culture on the backs of underpaid booksellers.

Fast-forward to now, and even amid expansion, the people working the floors are still fighting for living wages. B&N’s model has improved, but the inequity remains — the same Achilles’ heel I called out years ago.

Open stores all you want; that doesn’t prove the problem solved. It proves there are still enough passionate people willing to do this work despite being undervalued.

So no, the piece didn’t “age poorly.” It aged accurately. I was right then, and I’m right now: pay the people who sell the books. The rest is window dressing.

I called the local B&N to order several books yesterday. HAd a lovely, knowledgeable sales person. She said that she’d “process” the order immediately. It would have been much more reassuring if she’d been able to say that she’d ship it immediately. Last order got mangled at the warehouse. Make the service local. Identify the person who can answer inquiries.

If I want to do emails and if I want to “chat” with custoomr- I-dont-care dept, I can save money and deal with Amazon.

They understood the internet. What they didn’t understand is that you don’t double-cross Amazon. They’d already made a deal with Amazon as early as 2001, then decided to go it alone in 2006 and paid the price. I wrote a post on that .

I know! And I have been griping about this in posts for going on ten years. The fixes are simple, but change and letting go of the old isn’t.