You’re right of course. Some people will buy the non-woke title as a protest vote of sorts. And others will go out of their way to get an old copy out of a non-political sense of loyalty (some of these people were already buying the book as a historical object though and would have preferred a used copy to start).

But it is not just about people buying the book knowing it changed, or buying it because it changed. It’s about coming across a title like that cold, without knowing any context. (Remember: the aspiration of a publisher is always to have the book become more popular with new formerly uninterested audiences). It’s an empirical question whether that title will do better than a retitle but my money is on the title without the most fraught words in the English language on the cover.

Yeah but I tend not to care about the opinions of people who wish racial slurs had a more prominent place in modern society.

It is, if nothing else, convenient that I don't have to say one of the worst slurs in American English every time I discuss Agatha Christie's body of work.

It's worth noting that, for that reason, the book was released as "And Then There Were None" in its first US edition in 1940; the use of the original title until 1985 is a UK thing.

No, it doesn't.