Blockbuster Files For Bankruptcy 390
Dallas-based Blockbuster Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday, calling into question the futures of over 5,600 stores worldwide. The company will be evaluating each location on a case-by-case basis, and seeks to cut costs after reporting a $558 million net loss last year. Newsweek credits the company's slow adoption of new media distribution methods as a big reason for the company's decline. "... while Blockbuster discussed creating its own subscription service to rival Netflix, it wasn't until August 2004 that its online DVD rental program actually started in the US. And when, in 2004, Coinstar entered the market with its Redbox DVD kiosks, Blockbuster didn't begin installing similar devices until 2008." CNET suggests that "Leaders of pay TV services might be wise to start doing the business equivalent of digging foxholes and manning the battlements or the same thing could happen to them."
I'll miss them (Score:5, Interesting)
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Browsing in a browser beats browsing physical media when it contains 100000 times more choices and not only crappy hollywood 'blockbusters'. Guess I am a picky kinda guy.
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Having 100000 times the choice is worth very little when the user interface interface doesn't actually allow you to browse them. The Internet is really good at search, but at browsing it actually just plain out sucks, in a lot of cases it is even completly impossible.
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Not really. The browsing experience for movies isn't all that different between the net and brick and mortar. All you get in a video store is a picture of the front and back box cover. You see them small on the shelf and scan over them to see what looks nice. See one you like and you can pick it up and look at it more closely. In a browser you see small thumbnails of the same covers, and if you see one you like you can click on it and look at a larger version. It's pretty much the exact same thing for
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"Absolutely awe-inspiring..." ~Some Newspaper
Uh huh, yeah, that's what she said. [penny-arcade.com]
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Informative)
And conveniently these days you can borrow movies from most local libraries.... free.
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And conveniently these days you can borrow movies from most local libraries.... free.
Libraries don't have a very large selection and the condition of their movies can be horrible. I borrowed a Harry Potter from my local library and the thing wouldn't play because it was so scratched up. I don't know WTF people do, let their kids play hockey with the things?! The clerks at the local Hollywood that closed said that theirs was the same way, but they would have a bunch of backup copies - the library doesn't.
People are so inconsiderate.
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Don't worry, the RIAA is trying to fix this.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Informative)
Guess I'm just a library kinda guy.
Then go to the library. I haven't needed Netflix nor Blockbuster for a good long time. My library is part of a rather large network of libraries. I can go to the library itself and browse available titles and I can also put a hold online for pretty much any movie I want. Yes, I have to wait a bit longer for recent releases compared to a pay service, but I'm patient and there are plenty of older good movies that have zero wait that you can watch in the interim. Now, if you live somewhere where there aren't any good libraries, well, I guess you are SOL. I've never had this problem, but I guess if you live in the boonies it affects you.
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Now, if you live somewhere where there aren't any good libraries, well, I guess you are SOL. I've never had this problem, but I guess if you live in the boonies it affects you.
If you don't have easy access to a library here in Canada, like living in the boonies, there are programs in place for libraries to mail books to you. It's possible something similar exists in the US.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:4, Interesting)
The other option is that if you don't have a good video complement at your local library, ask if they take donations.
Many will (baring porn), and maybe you can jumpstart the local library collection. I give many of my old movies to the library and encourage everyone else to do the same.
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Re:I'll miss them (Score:4, Insightful)
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Before someone mods the parent "offtopic", the library is my favorite video "store" as well. They don't have the selection a video store has, but checking out a DVD or CD at the library is free. I go to the library first, if I can't find what I want then I'll go to a video store (Family Video; the insanely expensive Blockbuster here closed a year or two ago).
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It is not the digital downloads or pirated content that killed Blockbuster (at least here).
It is the like of LoveFilm which have 100 times the catalogue of your local BlockBuster branch and can offer it to you for a bag of peanuts over mail order using a "no late fees" model.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Interesting)
Netflix's new release section has a problem that I've observed on all other sites that list new releases: the big movies get thrown in the same jumbled mess of a page as all of the latest direct-to-DVD crap, yoga videos, and children's cartoon collections. Sure, I like stumbling upon new movies I haven't heard of, but a lot of the time I just want to see what big releases are making it to DVD. I've yet to find a decent site that ranks new releases by popularity. Any recommendations?
As much as I will always hate Blockbuster for charging me $250 late fees on single movies back in the day, there was something nice about walking the store and browsing the new releases. You could use the number of copies of a movie to point out the popular releases, and even if you had missed that a movie had come out several months ago, it would probably still be on the wall.
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DVDlater.com
It will let you add movies that are in theaters to your netflix queue.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither Netflix nor Amazon should even exist, but for the stupidity of Blockbuster and Barnes and Noble. I can see the clueless management of both companies now:
"Oh that intertooob thingy will never catch on!"
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Totally agreed. "Why would anyone want a movie sent to you in the mail? You wouldn't even know what movie you are going to see next! Walking around aisles of thousands of bad movies for over an hour is clearly a superior customer experience, and we don't need to worry about this competition."
Maybe they will build their next brick-and-mortar store out of clue-by-fours.
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Hey moron, there's no such thing as clue-by-fours. They're called 2"x4's! What an f'in dumb@$$. Could you be anymore clueless?
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry but a Clue by four does exist.
It's a 2"x4" with nails in the end you swing and hit people with.
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It's not stupidity. They were already making megabucks each year with obligatory bonuses independent on how the company they supposed to manage is doing. It's not a capitalism, it's a parody on it.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not stupidity. They were already making megabucks each year with obligatory bonuses independent on how the company they supposed to manage is doing. It's not a capitalism, it's a parody on it.
Actually, it is stupid. They could have used those megabucks to wipe out any competition that started getting popular. They were lazy and stupid because they didn't understand or study their market or the way technology changes their market. If you don't adapt to changing market conditions and get ahead of the curve, you can't expect to stay on top.
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I agree that it's stupid for a company to do that, but people who did that were not stimulated by the company actually to do that. They just sit on their salaries.
It's laziness rewarded in $M.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Insightful)
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Quite. I was a BlockBuster customer, but when I got a DVD player, I quickly gave up on them. They couldn't see the juggernaut approaching, and took forever to start stocking DVDs. When they did finally stock them, they only had an anemic selection of cropped "pan and scan" versions of a few of the most popular movies. So it wasn't just a matter of thinking the Internet wouldn't catch on; they also thought DVD wouldn't catch on.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:4, Informative)
One reason Blockbuster (and most rental stores) didn't like DVDs is because they'd come back scratched and eventually become unplayable. They preferred the longer life of the VHS tape, and therefore avoided DVDs as long as possible.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:4, Insightful)
Why was Barnes and Noble stupid? I bought books from their website before I bought them from amazon.
You might have bought from B&N first, but it sounds like you bought from Amazon later on? B&N should have invested early to keep Amazon from getting huge. Back in 1997 Amazon.com was cheap! B&N was huge! Amazon started buying up other .com's, like CDNow, in order to grow their product lines to be more than just books. Amazon grew from nothing and became a giant while B&N was a giant and started struggling to survive, but they both were selling the same thing! B&N could have been the site we all go to, or Amazon could have been a subsidiary. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory...
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Thus spake Wikipedia:
(Barnes and Noble) first began selling books online in the late 1980s, but the company’s website was not launched until May 1997.
In July 1995, the company (amazon) began service and sold its first book on amazon.com
Wow, it took B&N almost two years after Amazon to get their website going? Talk about missing the boat.
One can say that, but in 1995, B&N was a bookstore franchise while Amazon was an online company that decided books was the best product to start off selling. It's easy to miss the boat when the other party helps build it.
Two years actually seems pretty quick for B&N to get online, especially if one considers the growth in Internet usage over that time period. 1995 didn't exactly present a huge market for a company that had no e-commerce division to invest in, but the smaller Internet company Amazon.
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Hopefully Redbox will force Netflix out of much of the DVD market. They are way more convenient and cheaper for most people.
That will allow Netflix to focus on what I would love to see the most -- a completely internet based tv service. I can't wait until I can subscribe to HBO via Netflix.
But it seems like they need a kick in the pants to realize that the DVD mail business is not the future.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an incredible strategy they're undertaking.
They don't have free streaming, so what separated their plans from Netflix was that you could exchange in store.
Here they closed all three local stores leaving over 100,000 people without a local Blockbuster. Overnight, their rent by post plans were more expensive than Netflix and more restrictive. They also appeared to be slowing down shipping movies, where they'd often be sent out the day after your return was received, rather than the same day.
Then they started rolling out kiosks, like RedBox. But if you have a mail in subscription, you can't use your free rental coupons in their kiosks and you can't do returns or exchanges to their kiosks.
They seem hell bent on destroying themselves, and that doesn't engender much sympathy.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Informative)
Or what about the "always in stock guarantee!" That was my favorite. Apparently, if the new release you were looking for wasn't in stock, they'd give you a little paper rain check that says "You can rent this dvd at a future date for exactly the same price it is today, no questions asked!" Which would be just awesome, except.. their prices didn't really change often.. It was the same as not getting a rain check at all. They didn't hold a copy for you or anything. It was a disingenuous marketing ploy.. each and every one of them.
Every time they changed something, it was an insult to their customers. My $17.99 3-dvd at a time account transformed one night to $24.99. I was a little peeved, but at the time, I was enjoying the number of discs I could rent. So then they upped it one more time (about a month later) to $34.99. I dropped it like it was hot. F-that. Netflix it is. They literally couldn't have done a worse job at customer retention. It was like they were chasing me off with a big stick.
Amen Brother! (Score:3)
I have been licking my chops waiting for this day a long time...
Re:I'll miss them (Score:5, Informative)
This post needs some perspective I think. Let me qualify my post by saying:
1) I am a former Blockbuster employee (5 years ago while I was in college).
2) I am a current Netflix subscriber and occasional Redbox user. I can not recall the last time I walked into a Blockbuster. I think their business model is archaic.
Which only occurred after you didn't return it for a week! Did you think they were just going to let you keep the movie forever?
Unless this changed since I worked there, this is out and out wrong. The rain check was for a FREE copy of that title on your next visit.
Re:I'll miss them (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget their end of latefees-- which ended up the king of late fees. Apparently, if you kept the DVD, no late fees occurred, because they just charged your credit card for the purchase of the movie.
Which only occurred after you didn't return it for a week! Did you think they were just going to let you keep the movie forever?
I think you're misremembering this bit.
Blockbuster charged you a $1.25 restocking fee after 7 days. It wasn't the traditional late fee, which was based upon the number of days you were late, but no reasonable person is going to believe that that $1.25 isn't, in reality, a late fee.
They charged you the full price of the movie after 30 days--way more reasonable than 7, but still a nasty surprise for some people.
Unless this changed since I worked there, this is out and out wrong. The rain check was for a FREE copy of that title on your next visit.
You are correct. The GP has his head up his behind, or just has a hate-on for Blockbuster.
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One might say that if you pay poorly that's what you get
Off topic, but I agree with you here; I absolutely hate that way of thinking. When I was working a crappy hourly-wage job, I still made sure that I could go home at the end of the day with the pride of doing a good job. The reason people get stuck in crappy low-paying jobs is because they believe the job they're doing is beneath them, and don't make an attempt to excel at it. If you can't take pride in what you do, the fault is not with the task at hand, but the person doing it.
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Still, it has to suck for those unfortunate poor bastards that have crap-tastic or non-existent internet service. And no, not all libraries or library networks have a good selection of titles. (Netflix doesn't ever use mailed catalogs, do they?)
On the upside, in the more remote or rural areas - the Ma & Pa type video stores can get back into the game. It'll just take a while.
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I tend to agree with this. Blockbuster's problem, or at least in my area, is that it's actually rather expensive compared to the mom-and-pop video store across town. The mom-and-pop has a huge selection of foreign films (I found that out when I started suffering my Kirosawa fetish), and its new regular releases are about a buck cheaper.
I go to the mom-and-pop store and there's always ten or fifteen people browsing, go to Blockbuster and maybe three or four. I just can't see how they can pay the rent with
Re:I Won't (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting hit with late return fees just doesn't hold up to on demand streaming of tens of thousands of titles. Guess I'm just not a Luddite.
You say this like the late fee is a required part of the rental experience. I've rented a lot of movies over the last 20 years, and never once have I had a late fee. How hard is it to return something on time? Apparently pretty hard, based one how many people get them, but I just don't understand it.
Re:I Won't (Score:5, Insightful)
there's no connection between "I saw a movie last night" and "I must return the movie"
Wow, you can't even remember for 24 hours (or 2 days, or however long your rental is)? I don't know what to say. Perhaps I'd just suggest that, when you're done watching, instead of throwing the movie on top of your entertainment center or somewhere out of the way, perhaps you can set it with your car keys or something, so that it's very obvious to you. I expect your response will probably be "no thanks, I'd just prefer not to rent movies instead", but if you have that much trouble remembering things, then just take it as general advice.
I'm sure you can be anal about it and never get a late fee, but I'd rather have not go through that effort just to watch a damn movie.
Anal? WTF? You say that like I sit there all day saying "gotta return that movie, gotta return that movie", post notes all over the house reminding me, and have a daily checklist with an item labeled "returned rentals (if applicable)". Is it anal that I remember to put on pants before leaving the house, too?
Re:I Won't (Score:4, Insightful)
Who charges overage fee? I have TWC and even those assholes don't stoop to that level.
Re:I Won't (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh, didn't know that was happening. My connection speeds have been getting faster... for the last 15 years.
good fail! (Score:3, Insightful)
blockbusters main source of revenue was late fees. all I can say is, goodbye blockbuster don't let the door hit you in the butt.
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Not sure what is meant by this, but at my local store they reintroduced late fees and they were harsh. Even for older releases you had 3 days to return the movie or it was automatically rented again ($5) and the cycle repeated until you paid the retail equivalent in rental fees at which point you owned the scratched, dented, smudged rental CD. The day the policy changed I started a Netflix account and never looked back.
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All of us dropped Blockbuster long before Blockbuster dropped late fees. In fact yesterday when I first read about this story was the first time I'd heard that they'd dropped late fees, an action that smacks of desperation.
Blockbuster finally tepidly had their own through-the-mail system which, when combined with their physical stores, could have easily beat Netflix, if not for Blockbuster's incredible inability to see the handwriting on the wall.
Also, there are lots of other reasons to hate Blockbuster bes
So sad, but it's time (Score:5, Insightful)
Goodbye, Blockbuster. With news of your bankruptcy (yes, I know they aren't technically closing all their stores...yet), a bit of my childhood is officially gone.
Tell me, fellow slashdotters: was there anything better when you were a kid than going to the video store on a friday night to rent a video game or movie? My brother and I rented COUNTLESS NES and SNES games from our local video store (Olney Video)...soooo many games. Good times, good times.
I recognize how convenient and better services like Netflix and Gamefly are, but there's just something about going into a dusty old video store and browsing the shelves that convenience will never replace.
Re:So sad, but it's time (Score:4, Insightful)
I recognize how convenient and better services like Netflix and Gamefly are, but there's just something about going into a dusty old video store and browsing the shelves that convenience will never replace.
If we're going on a nostalgia trip, I want to mention the properly dusty video rental shops that came before the glossy multinational chains stepped in. Thinking of those places gives me a Proustian rush into the 80s almost as much as retro arcade cabinets.
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I mentioned one in my post :-) Our local shop, Olney Video. It had it all: curtained-off "adult" section, the big clear plastic cases for the tapes, the whole deal. They even maintained a small betamax section!
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Re:So sad, but it's time (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking of Mom and Pop video stores, when my favorite local video store was steamrolled out of business by Blockbuster, he fired back (literally) by using half of his store to manufacture illegal fireworks! Every year near the end of June, the video store was packed with customers, until one day a manufacturing accident created a big explosion and a big fire. My brother was nearby when it went down, and said there were rockets flying through the streets, and saw the owner get carried out on a stretcher with lots of charred skin! He eventually recovered, and still makes the fireworks but in a different location.
Sadly this guy had one of the biggest collections of NES and SNES games I've ever seen, as well as a massive collection of 80s and 90s VHS pr0n that I never got to see (but always peeked behind the curtain to get a glimpse of the box covers); all was destroyed in the fire.
Re:So sad, but it's time (Score:5, Insightful)
Blockbuster was the biggest meanest dinosaur you ever saw...then the asteroid hit. Suddenly being the biggest and meanest didnt matter anymore. All
the big stores that enabled them to triumph over their rental rivals suddenly became disadvantages over their newer smaller smarter competitors.
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Yes, it was Blockbuster who ran the mom and pop stores out of business - by actually having new releases available on the day of release (and in quantity, not just one or two), by actually having a deep backstock of movies (and in quantity and across a wide variety of genres), etc., etc..
I'm tired of hearing crocodile tears for the steam powered "mom 'n pop" stores. As Blockbuster is being
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I'm tired of hearing crocodile tears for the steam powered "mom 'n pop" stores. As Blockbuster is being taken down by services that better provide what the customer wants, so the "mom 'n pop" stores were taken down by Blockbuster.
fair point - but there are no crocodile tears for a soulless corporate like blockbuster, in fact, there's more than a little Schadenfreude :-)
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Wasn't it Blockbuster who ran the mom and pop video rental stores out of business with their corporate muscle?
Yep. I remember our local video store well (Video Movieland). Small little place over by the Piggly Wiggly. When a new release came out you had to be there QUICK. They didn't deal in selling old movies, so they ordered however many copies they figured they'd need for the foreseeable future. The biggest new release out they'd typically have no more than 4 or 5 copies. They had their little horror room decorated with fake spiderwebs (probably some real ones mixed in there too . . .) and Halloween stuff.
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Oh yeah, and ARE YOU LISTENING MUSIC INDUSTRY? Innovate or die.
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Oh yeah, and ARE YOU LISTENING MUSIC INDUSTRY? Innovate or die.
If it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather they skip the innovation and just die. Same goes for most of the major motion picture studios.
Luckily for me, they seem hellbent on this already.
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We didn't have video rental when I was a kid you, insensitive clod. If it wasn't in the cinema or on television you couldn't watch it. Although some of my friends did have cable TV. And you couldn't rent computer games. You had to either buy one or give a 5 1/4" floppy to a friend and ask him to make you a copy from a game that he bought. Now get off my lawn!
Re:So sad, but it's time (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me, fellow slashdotters: was there anything better when you were a kid than going to the video store on a friday night to rent a video game or movie?
There were no videogames or movie rentals when I was a kid, kid. I spent my Friday nights at the drive-in theater (in fact I worked at one when I was a teenager). I spent a lot of time at the public library, and in my room with a slide rule and soldering gun.
I recognize how convenient and better services like Netflix and Gamefly are, but there's just something about going into a dusty old video store and browsing the shelves that convenience will never replace.
Netflix didn't kill Blockbuster, stupidity did. Here in Springfield the Blockbuster store closed down a year or two ago. They were stupid enough to open right across the street from Family Video and rent new releases for four bucks a day while FV rented them for $3 a week. BB rented older movies for $3 for 2 days while FV rented them for a buck a week.
Guess what? Family Video is still there, and a lot of FV stores are in town. AFAIK that was the only Blockbuster here.
Only an idiot opens a store across the street from the competetion and tries to charge higher prices for the same goods. Blockbuster is going bankrupt because their business model is almost as stupid as the record labels.
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We had a local video store (Olney Video) that was amazingly awesome, but the guy moved out of town (when I lived in Olney, there was about 7,000 people within the city limits...now, it's closer to about 40-50,000)...about a year later is when Blockbuster showed up. Since they were the only store near us, that's what we went for. Still, they seemed to understand the small-town mentality, and they catered pretty well to our needs.
I'd gone to other Blockbuster stores before, and they sucked pretty bad. The
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Well . . it was kind of fun, to be sure, but they don't much have what I want to watch, and Netflix does. I've have literally watched every Anime title that they have at the local Blockbuster.
The Onion (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's what they'd do in a communist country like Belgium. In the Land of the Free Enterprise, the purpose of Chapter 11 is for consultants, lawyers and accountants (usually the brothers-in-law of the Board) to strip the carcase of any remaining flesh.
It seems harsh, but by encouraging them to feed on the weakest of the pack, it keeps them away from healthy companies.
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By your logic Netflix should have never went into business.
Netflix, Redbox, and Blockbuster all offer the same product. The only thing that is different is cost and how they deliver the product to you. Netflix entered the market with a new delivery method (straight to home) at a low cost and it worked. Redbox entered the market with a low cost and instead of stores they have kiosks positioned strategically through out towns and cities.
For Blockbuster to convert to those two models probably wouldn't cost much. The real cost is regaining lost customers. At this p
Re:Time for them to throw in the towel (Score:5, Interesting)
There also has to be a reason Netflix can get buy on $8.95 or $15.95 a month.
Lower salaries? Corporate offices in an inexpensive location? No corporate headquarters?
Older companies build up fixed costs over time. If they get big enough, they get the law changed to protect them. If they don't make that size, the die off.
I finally bit the bullet and signed up for netflix last night.
AMAZING.
Took under 10 minutes and I was watching "Pushing up Daisies" and then browse parts of several movies.
With my new blu ray player (still in the box) I should be able to watch these on my TV too.. .and on my iPhone.. and at my friend's house on their computer.
Amazing. Incentives for pirating drop waaaaay down when you get "all you can eat" for $8.95. Some stuff I'll have to wait to come in the mail.
Seems too good to last-- to good to be true.
At some point the people supplying netflix will raise their rates as they did on the cable tv providers.
But for now- nice.
Re:Time for them to throw in the towel (Score:4, Informative)
Just a quick note -- Netflix does have a Corporate Headquarters. I know. I work there. It's very nice. And the salaries are well-known to be noticeably above-average. It's a kick-ass place to work.
I'm not spilling any corporate secrets when I note that analysts have acknowledged for a while that the lower Netflix drives its subscription plans, the harder it will be to compete with it. We started with a, what, $15.95 plan, I think? (I was a subscriber back in 2002). The lowest plan which offers unlimited streaming is $8.99/month now. Pretty sure you'll never see it go up.
This is what happens, when... (Score:4, Insightful)
You spend all your time focusing on the mom-n-pop's you're putting out of business, and don't look in the rearview mirror to see RedBox or Netflix.
Seriously, Blockbuster lost its karma when it used its size to ink deals with movie studios to stock their shelves on consignment with a percentage of the rental fee going to the studios. This allow BB to stock more movies, while the small local movie rental shops still had to purchase their DVDs at the ridiculously high rental shop price.
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You spend all your time focusing on the mom-n-pop's you're putting out of business, and don't look in the rearview mirror to see RedBox or Netflix.
Perhaps the mom-n-pop's will make a slight comeback. There are still a few of them out there, and there is still the nitch of spontaneously renting an old movie that Netflix and RedBox can't fill.
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There are still a few of them out there, and there is still the nitch [sic] of spontaneously renting an old movie that Netflix and RedBox can't fill.
Netflix really can fill that niche, though, via instant watch. I really believe (or at least, hope) that the library of movies, especially older movies, available for instant watch will grow to the point that it's competitive with the older titles available in any local store.
Re:This is what happens, when... (Score:4, Insightful)
You spend all your time focusing on the mom-n-pop's you're putting out of business, and don't look in the rearview mirror to see RedBox or Netflix.
Next on the chopping block: gamestop. They did the same thing. They also still have more stores than any reasonable person would think they would need, the result of merging with EB games and closing few redundant stores.
They've managed to hold their own in the face of competing with walmart etc, mostly through the used console game market. Many of their customers don't bat an eye at selling a game for $5 that someone else would buy for $25. Game developers are already moving in to try to block used game sales with one time use codes and digital content. I'd expect that next generation, most of the big titles will not be transferrable easily and gamestop will really take a hit.
What really happened (Score:2)
Tomorrow's stories: Company X buys blockbuster assets for 20 cents on the dollar, fires half the employees. Former blockbuster executive gives millions to charity!
Happening tomorrow but not in the news: Company X hires former Blockbuster executives; major stakeholders suddenly and unaccountably rich. Major wheeling and dealing between politicians, the IRS, a
In completely unrelated news (Score:4, Informative)
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Netflix(NFLX) announced on Friday that it will expand its licensing agreement with NBC, allowing users to stream prior televisions series from its cable and broadcast networks.
Netflix subscribers will be able to watch series like Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, Monk and Battlestar Galactica, the company said.
Netflix has been working over the last several months to expand its streaming content, first through a partnership with EPIX, a joint venture between Viacom(VIA), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Lions Gate Entertainment(LFG) that could add up to 20,000 new titles to Netflix's streaming content.
Evolve or Die (Score:2)
I have zero sympathy for the companies that are failing due to lack of innovation and evolution. Rest on your laurel
Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:4, Funny)
Yoga? Yoga's not going to help. It gives you way too much time to put your body in uncomfortable positions and _think_ about all the ways various bastards wronged you. Like that damned yoga teacher who suckered you into dislocating your own hip.
Meh, dinosaurs died out too (Score:4, Insightful)
One more greedy corporation who muscled out the small, neighborhood stores and when they finally became the big kid on the block, squeezed their customers for everything they could. Now, in the light of new technology they're unable to control, they become unable to compete. So be it.
In the words of airline stewardesses everywhere: B'bye!
Re:Meh, dinosaurs died out too (Score:5, Interesting)
One more greedy corporation who muscled out the small, neighborhood stores and when they finally became the big kid on the block, squeezed their customers for everything they could. Now, in the light of new technology they're unable to control, they become unable to compete. So be it.
In the words of airline stewardesses everywhere: B'bye!
Indeed. My "venal Blockbuster" story are the sheets of prepaid rental coupons that were suitable for "gift giving". My wife bought some sheets of these to give me as a birthday gift - which I used a few times, and then discovered that they had "expired"! These were not some sort of promotional freebies, not even some sort of discount deal, they were full price pre-paid rentals! And in tiny print on the back of the coupons (not evident in any of their gift promotions) I discovered that they were only good for six months. Having advance use of our money for free, and the bonus possibility that I might lose or forget about them and thus never redeem all of them (common with gift cards) was not good enough for their profit margins - they had to convert a sale into a theft. I didn't use Blockbuster much after that - a great strategy for building your consumer loyalty.
Witness a rare defense of Blockbuster (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's hip to romanticize Mom & Pop stores over the big evil corporation, but I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint on this one. Does Blockbuster stock mostly crap (i.e. the latest CGI-fests/the latest Adam Sandler movies/etc.)? You bet. But, you know what, all my Mom & Pop's shelved crap almost *exclusively* before Blockbuster came along in the 90's. Blockbuster was actually a godsend to my neighborhood because they stocked a pretty decent selection of indie and lesser-known movies. They may not have had 100 copies of "Ghost Dog," or "Memento" or "Sling Blade," but at least they had a FEW copies. My local Mom & Pop's didn't have ANY of these movies (before Blockbuster and Netflix, there was no way for me to see these movies without buying them). Blockbuster ran my local rental stores out of business for one very good reason, because they were a lot BETTER (no bullying necessary).
Now, when Netflix came along I went over to them (because they offered an even better selection and didn't censor NC-17's like Blockbuster). But for a long time in the 90's, Blockbuster was the best store out there for film fans in a LOT of neighborhoods and even whole cities. Blockbuster was the only place to go for smaller films, unless you were one of the fortunate few to have a nearby Mom & Pop that catered to indie fans (and those were pretty rare in the cities I lived in, and usually only found near big college campuses and in artier neighborhoods).
So I'll actually miss them. And I also worry that Netflix might now leverage this to jack up their prices and introduce other heavy-handed customer treatment (since they pretty much have a monopoly now on physical rentals).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's not jump to conclusions. Bankruptcy proceedings don't mean Blockbuster is out of business (yet).
Re: (Score:2)
They likely put a small dent in the TV station audience and in the movie attending audience.
But the complaint had nothing to do with the "put out of business" part - it had to do with the "once the competition is gone squeeze the customer" part. That you are too stupid to notice that makes me even more stupid for bothering to reply comprehending anything beyond "Run, Dog, Run" is clearly beyond you.
Great! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm glad bastards are finished. How many customers they have gouged with false "lost" tapes/dvd/games or "late" fees. Twice they have tried to screw me over and it took months to correct "computer" errors.
Digging foxholes? (Score:2)
I view that as trying to protect your existing way of business rather than adapting.
Digging foxholes is the last thing a country struggling to adapt to new realities should do. It only works if you're large enough to get legislation passed to protect the old ways. (MPAA/RIAA)
technology, media, business models change (Score:2)
and companies should adapt to the changes, or die. unfortunately, we have established players from dying media industries still trying to uphold laws that don't work in the internet age
such media companies should, for anyone who believes in capitalism, adapt, or die. blockbuster is a perfect example of this natural capitalist death
instead, large entrenched media companies warp the marketplace by influencing the government and our laws to preserve a status quo that should be dying. they'd rather not change.
CEO and Investors (Score:2)
Re:CEO and Investors (Score:5, Funny)
.
I wonder how much of this is MPAA greed? (Score:2)
I don't pretend to know all there is to know about the video rental business, but I do know the MPAA has a lot to do with making that business difficult. For example, when buying media for rental purposes, they have to spend a LOT more for each copy -- they can't just go to Best Buy to buy their rental copies. And as for being able to move on into newer business models; it's not like they didn't want to or didn't try. I get the feeling that various conditions and restrictions were applied to the deal tha
Re: (Score:2)
The myth of growth has been hammered into the brains of literally all western business people politicians and to some degree as well into the general public, it is hard to relearn, there is no such thing as unlimited growth and to the worse if you try to enforce it you basically just enforce an only the strongest survive and not even those approach, there is a reason why evolution first followed this approach but at the turning point of introducing the mammals changed to a common goal and group helps eath o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea.. because if you are 50+, you should really not be hirable any more. It'd be best if you just go and starve in the wilderness so as not to be a burden on society unless you are successful at carousel and get renewal.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For example, when buying media for rental purposes, they have to spend a LOT more for each copy -- they can't just go to Best Buy to buy their rental copies.
Sure they can. This is what RedBox does. Blockbuster just pays extra to get their rental copies before they're available in Best Buy.
Someone lost their copy of the memo (Score:2, Interesting)
Blockbuster exclusive dvds. (Score:2)
The evil part was Blockbuster versions of DVD's... which had the special features removed.
The REALLY evil part was that they considered subtitles and captions to be special features.. Rented quite a few dvd's to find out that despite what the box said, there was no captions.
At least they generally refunded any rental fees.
Cable not going anywhere w/o viable alternative (Score:4, Informative)
I don't agree with the last part of the summary saying the cable companies are going the same way as Blockbuster.
The cable companies MIGHT go the same was as Blockbuster if the cable companies had a serious competitor like RedBox or Netflix. As far as I can tell, there is no alternative (especially for niche interests like mine...soccer, racing, BBC). Sure you can get tv content from online sources, but can I watch Texas vs. UCLA this weekend without a cable subscription? How about Oregon vs. Arizona State? What about the Singapore Grand Prix? How about some English Premiere League soccer or the CONCACAF matches?
And even if I could get this content that I want on-demand, cheaply and easily, how do I get it to my TV with surround sound? So far none of the alternatives has solved this issue for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, at least from my own perspective, the delay is reasonable because this just isn't very interesting. With Netflix, iTMS, and pay-per-view movies, Blockbuster because irrelevant to me years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or perhaps the fact the fact they have changed the rental overdue agreement substantially several times has played a part. They went from no overdue fees to "Gee, it's a week late? It's yours!" with virtually no fanfare. I may be exaggerating slightly, but not much!!!
Pam
http://www.talksocialnews.com/ [talksocialnews.com]
In 1999 or 2000 they changed the policy while I had a dvd rented and sitting in my college dorm. The result was that I had a fraction of a day less to return the rental. Of course, since they changed the rules after I had checked out the disk, I didn't know this. When I brought it back and was told I owed a late fee, I still had my receipt with the return deadline listed, which the manager agreed showed clearly that my return was, in fact, on time. But he said there was nothing he could do (which was no
Re:Bailout! (Score:4, Informative)
Don't let facts get in your way. The $700 billion bailout was a Bush policy.
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-09-24/politics/bush.bailout_1_bailout-proposal-rescue-plan-mortgage-related-securities?_s=PM:POLITICS [cnn.com]