One thing I'd like to say, that most of you probably can safely ignore

Generally speaking when there's a business model that is about one party introducing another to a third, say... Matchmaking, or Headhunting or things like that, that facilitation nets hundreds if not thousands of dollars per client. The starting price in the digital model offered at the moment seems to be something like 15 cents.

I can't see how any retailer, in any industry, under any model could possibly accept any deal where they didn't keep proprietary control of data/customer/whatever. It sure as heck didn't work when Borders handed all of their business off over to Amazon for fulfillment. How long does it take the customer to think "but, wait, why do I need Borders in this transaction in the first place?" Sure, there is going to be some teeny tiny percentage of people who will reward you for a prior loyal relationship, but that's not a realistically tenable business model for the future, right?

It's weird, there's this large part of me which would love to embrace digital comics with both arms -- I think it would be a perfect fit for this website, in particular, under certain conditions, but those do not appear to be the circumstances we're actually being asked to live with.

Working retail is as much about curation, and knowledge about, and core enthusiasm FOR the product as it is about having the selection of product in the first place. And I think there's value in that, true value. I would, of course!

-B