Blockbuster To Close Remaining US Locations 419
UnknowingFool writes "Blockbuster announced that it will close its remaining 300 U.S. locations by January and discontinue the DVD by mail service. Before being bought out by Dish, the chain was slowly closing locations. Dish's CEO said, 'This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment.' From an all-time high of 9,000 locations in 2004, the chain has fallen on hard times and had emerged from bankruptcy in 2011."
Really sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
I loved going in and buying the used flikcks; sometimes 4 DVDs for $20 or 2 Blurays for $20. I built up a nice physical collection which I much prefer to just files. If they shut down any local stores I'll make a point to be there early for the sell-off day.
I guess I'm in that minority that likes the in-store experience and browsing shelves rather than clunky cable box UIs.
Re:Really sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm with you on this one.
I still buy CDs and BluRay disks by going to the store and looking at what's there. I prefer to have the physical thing, instead of some digital thing they can decide on a whim I no longer 'own' and can no longer use.
Admittedly, I haven't rented a movie in years ... but I'm certainly not paying to rent it on-line and then pay my ISP for the bandwidth needed to stream it.
I'm definitely not prepared to give up physical media.
Netflix was a reason but not the only reason (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be easy to say that Netflix killed Blockbuster, and certainly Blockbuster inflicted harm on themselves. Netflix did play a part but Blockbuster's problems come from a business model that came under threat from multiple fronts.
Netflix challenged Blockbuster by offering both instant streaming and titles by mail services but mainly in older titles and TV shows. Blockbuster still had an advantage for consumers in new releases.
Unfortunately, the rise of VOD competitors like Apple's iTunes, Amazon Instant, VUDU, Microsoft, etc offered consumers better choices when it came to new releases and offered advantages over Blockbuster. Even at the same price of a Blockbuster rental, consumers didn't have to physically get and return the title. Stock was never a problem, and the catalogs were better than a consumer could get at a Blockbuster's location.
For consumers that could not stream video, Redbox has taken away the last advantage of Blockbuster. The prices are cheaper and even if the selection is as limited as a Blockbuster location, there are far more Redbox locations. Since Redbox's model allows rentals to be returned to any location, this means the death of Blockbuster in many locations.
independent video rental? (Score:5, Interesting)
Blockbuster pushed out many of the independent video rental places. I wonder if some of them will make a come back, to fill what ever niche there will be for renting physical videos. Or maybe that niche just won't exist anymore.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here in the midwestern US we have Family Video, which at one time also had pretty decent dialup service. All the local Family Video stores I'm aware of are still open, have free titles, rent most stock for $1 and have a porn section. As the last chain standing I'd say they did it right. I've been an eight-DVDs-at-a-time Netflix subscriber since 1999 but I'm glad the local brick and mortar store (not vending machine) is around. Sometime it's nice to just browse.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Their business model was morbidly flawed; they started renting movies when tapes cost over a hundred dollars each, so four bucks to rent one wasn't a bad deal. But then tapes (and later DVDs) came down in price, Blockbuster's competitors had prices down to a buck a tape/DVD and Blockbuster acted like they held a monopoly. Hell, there used to be a Blockbuster right across from Family Video on 6th street here, with FamVid DVDs at $1 and Blockbuster DVDs at $4 and you could often BUY the DVD Blockbuster was renting for $4 at WalMart for $5.
Meanwhile, there are still dozens of Family Video stores here in town, as well as lots of RedBox kiosks. Blockbuster was greedy to the point of mental retardation. No way can you rent a $5 or $10 or even $20 item for $4.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)