Blockbuster is still renting videos in my city. They closed several locations. I think there’s still 3 stores left within 15 miles of my house.
I miss the smaller independent rental places. 
I was a member of one of the last still open. It finally closed last year.
If the majority of the time you wind up looking unsuccessfully in a dozen different places for non-obscure movies, then you’re doing something wrong.
Well, would you rather order the movie you want and wait a few days for it to be delivered to your home, or would you rather look 12 different places and still not get it? I don’t even use Netflix myself so it’s not like I’m in love with the company, but if you’re not finding the movies you want elsewhere then Netflix is the obvious solution. Sure, it doesn’t cause DVDs to magically materialize in your home the instant you request them, but neither did Blockbuster.
Inception, The Spanish Prisoner and Big Fish are all available at my local library. Granted, it’s serving a pretty big metropolis but people seriously underestimate their local libraries. Even if it’s not on the shelf, it’s a good bet that they can get it via interlibrary loans.
I grew up in the 90s so I still remember making a trip every few weeks to the video store to pick up a few movies to rent. It was not the extravaganza some people are painting it. I have access via netflix and the public library to far more material than Blockbuster ever had when I was growing up. Even hulu, which I don’t pay for and simply use the free services has a wealth of material on it. I recently watched a large number of episodes of Nanny and the Professor there, which I do believe is not even released on DVD so even if video rentals weren’t struggling, there’s no guarantee it would be in any given store. I’m definitely willing to wait a day or so if it means I have access to more stuff.
When I was thinking about getting Netflix, I was thinking about this issue. Their online catalog lists all their movies, but only a portion of them are available digitally. So I called Netflix and asked what happens if I’m looking for a movie and it looks like it’s available, but it’s not available for streaming. The rep. told me that they could switch my subscription to the DVD side, I could order the title I wanted, and when I returned it in the mail, I could call to have the subscription moved back to streaming. He said that I could receive the movie in a couple days, watch it and return it in a couple days, and have it switched back right after that. He made it sound like that happens all the time. I don’t know if they really do this, or if this guy was just making something up because I didn’t subscribe to Netflix, so I didn’t try it out. But it might be worth a call to Netflix to see if this would be something you’re interested in doing.
Ok, so you tell me: What do you do if you want to watch a movie that’s a few years old, it isn’t available via streaming, and you don’t have a DVD-by-mail Netflix subscription?
Well, how many movies were stocked by a typical Blockbuster video store? A thousand or so? (And remember that most older movies weren’t even released on VHS.) So even then, you were out of luck for the more obscure stuff. So the idea that one mail-order DVD rental company stocked virtually every title ever released on DVD was a breakthrough. (I think there were a few specialty companies like Facets that offered obscure stuff, but Netflix made that stuff available to a mainstream audience.)
As multiple people in this thread have already said, go to the public library.
If you absolutely refuse to use your public library, Best Buy sells most 2-3 year old movies for between $8-$12, just slightly more expensive than a Blockbuster rental.
I can’t find the article online right now, but I remember reading that the average Blockbuster store carried around 10,000 discs (not titles, discs). So maybe 7,500 titles. If you’re lucky and the shelves aren’t dominated by 200 copies each of multiple new releases.
For comparison’s sake, the DVD collection that I’ve collected for the library I work in just passed the 7,500 mark. So again, your public library is the place to go.
What would you have done 15+ years ago if you wanted to watch a particular movie and you didn’t have a video store membership? If you refuse to go to the library or buy the movie, you could try getting a Netflix subscription. If you don’t want a Netflix subscription then that’s your business, but don’t complain about how you can’t rent DVDs if you refuse to use a major DVD rental service.
Here’s a typical order:
Netflix streaming, Hulu, cable rental, borrow from friend, library, Amazon, Demonoid
all of which, save the library, take less time than driving to a video store.
It is available on Netflix DVD though, which would only cost you another 6 bucks a month. Is it that 6 bucks is such an astronomical fee to you that you can’t afford it, or are you just refusing to sign up because you believe you are following some kind of “principle” and thus spiting them?
I know it’s been mentioned several times already, but my solution to the lack of video rental stores is using the library.
Now, it depends on how your library system is set up - but at mine, if you check the library catalog, you can search for your video among all the libraries in the system, and then use the website to have it sent to your local branch. They charge a dollar to send it, but it’s still cheaper than any of the other options. Again, it depends on your library system, but mine has about 30 branches, and from among all of them, you can find a lot of older (and even some obscure) titles.
The thing is, I used video stores all the time back in the day. There was very often an old movie I wanted to see that no local video store had, period.
Right now virtually any movie ever released, I can get access to. I don’t see how that’s materially worse than the situation when it was all through video rental places.
It seems like some people are hung up on the fact that if there is a title out there you can’t rent digitally, there’s no easy way to get it in your hands “instantly.” Well, what happened is people and the market at large have shown that when you weigh the convenience of ordering Netflix DVDs through the mail and other alternative options (like just buying it from Amazon.com), most people prefer to get DVDs that way. People at large just didn’t prefer physical stores, if they did, more of them would still be in business.
A lot more movies are a lot easier to get now than they’ve ever been in the past.
FWIW, I don’t use the public library because it’s inconvenient. The moment I have to start fucking around with shit like requesting the disc be shipped from one library to my local library on an interlibrary loan and stuff like that, I’m done. I’ll buy a DVD for $10 before I deal with that bullshit. Not to mention the library mostly just sucks. You can’t go into most of them without being accosted by homeless people and sadly just about any downtown library you can’t even find a place to sit and read a book because vagabonds and drifters are just laying all over the place. When I was a kid I loved the library, but libraries absolutely suck now and I never go in them if I can avoid it.
Well maybe your local library makes the process really inconvenient, but on mine, it’s only a few clicks on the library website - certainly no more time or effort than clicking around Amazon to add the item to my shopping cart and pay for it.
I guess I’m just lucky to have such a great library system, because all I have to do is search the library website and click “Place Hold” on the title I want to see. It makes no difference where the DVD is coming from, as I pick it up from whichever branch I prefer. There is absolutely no inconvenience and it’s done in seconds.
I went to the video store today, and they didn’t have what I wanted, so I went to the other video store.
StG
We must have an incredible library system as well because I can search for anything and see where it’s available at any of the 50 libraries in the county, and if I want it that day, I can put a hold on it and drive there, if I can wait two days (just like I would if I put something on my Netflix queue and popped it to the top) it’ll be delivered to my local branch.
If your library (system) isn’t doing this, in 2012, remember that the next time a bond measure or tax increment for library funding is on your ballot.
#YoungPeopleProblems
Gimme gimme gimme now.
Regarding the availability of renting services, many new TVs and also gaming boxes come with renting apps such as Netflix, Amazon and iTunes. My XBox has some sort of movie market that I never use and I’m sure Playstation has something similar. However, I can’t comment on the depth of their offerings, like, say, Willow.
Also, as others have said, there are now many ways to purchase movies. So, Willow may be challenging to rent, but if you REALLY wanted to watch Willow (And, for Willow, we’re talking about a fundamental human need here), you have many opportunities. From Walmart, to eBay, to torrents, to, I don’t know,Craigslist maybe.
This. The OP of this thread throws out the state of affairs before rental places and seems to be stuck in one way of being; the person who watches maybe one movie a year and that movie is an old one. If you are going to willingly limit your options, giving up streaming and keeping the ‘disc in the mail’ seems to be the better option. It would be like me grousing about the availability of cassettes. Things have moved on - for the better.
For most of us who watch many movies a year Netflix is a good deal on the whole. I hated the experience of driving to Blockbuster, fighting for the choices that were left and standing in line to pay for it. Oh yeah, and if I didn’t get to watch it when I wanted to worrying about getting it back before the late fees kicked in.
On the rare occasions I can’t get what I want from Netflix I can alway buy one from Amazon (Prime!) for about the price of a rental.
Thanks for the suggestions, but note that the movie is not available on streaming. So that eliminates several of your possibilities. I agree with others that the library is probably the best bet – if they have it.