I remember people used to say all the time that Barnes & Noble is too big to fail. I wonder if they still feel the same. I think Sears and Enron are the best examples that there is no such thing as a company that is too big to fail. And Barnes & Noble is certainly not one of them, even if they exist.
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Virtually no company is too big to fail. General Motors was propped up during 2008, and some of the major banks were as well, but others did fail.
Anything below the largest company or two in the largest industries can go away.
BN being a small company (in the larger scale of the S&P/Fortune 500), in a niche sub-industry (books), in a larger industry (retail) that is pretty dynamic, is definitely expendable.
BN is no General Motors, Walmart or Chase Bank.