Wasn’t comparing it to Blockbuster.
They’re still around, but trends are moving against them and it ain’t pretty.
Weird. Family Video and Hollywood Video stores are both alive and apparently well around here.
I guess my Red Box idea was crap. :smack:
I never considered the fact that it only has current movies. Tee Hee
I was in Blockbuster on Saturday for the first time in months. I tried renting A Bronx Tale. They didn’t have it! I was surprised.
But still. I would assume the rise of netflix would be good for the availability of obscure movies. After all, if there’s some film that only a couple thousand people in the country are interested in, it hardly makes sense for a neighborhood video store to stock it, since their chance of renting it more then once or twice is close to nil. But it doesn’t cost netflix much to get a copy or two and stick it in their warehouse, they’ll probably rent it a couple of hundred times, and having it will make them look good since they can then brag about how complete their collection is.
Certainly I’ve had a lot easier time finding movies on netflix then at my local place.
The last local video store here closed about 2 years ago. I felt bad, because I used to like it, but it really wasn’t as good a value for me as Netlix was, and I had gone much less often once I got Netflix.
There are several Blockbusters hanging on, but I have to imagine that they’re just hemorrhaging money.
There was an article about RedBox a week or so ago. Their boxes can hold a much wider variety of movies than they do, but they deliberately choose not to. They are going for the person who rents a movie on the way out of the supermarket, who doesn’t want to be held up by lots of choices. It seems to be working.
You won’t regret it. First, you can get TV series very efficiently, something our Blockbuster never had. I’m having a good time re-watching stuff I watched as a kid, and seeing the nuances I missed then.
The other good thing is that the queue allows you to select movies when you are in the mood to do so, not when you have time to watch them.
The selection and lack of late fees are good also. We have two Blockbusters close by, but I haven’t been to them since we started Netflix.
We do this with TV series.
We watched the entire Sopranos series in 6 months. It’s SO much better to be able to watch 2-3 a night every night you want to, then to have to wait 6 years to see the series. The impact is much greater if you can actually remember what happened 5 episodes ago, because it was only 2 nights ago…
The decent independent I was using just disappeared. I went back and everything was gone. I wonder what they did with all the stock. Either they moved way away, or they found a bulk buyer. They didn’t stay open two weeks just selling it to the locals like I might have figured. Now there’s Blockbuster and Hollywood, and this one little thing that wouldn’t rent to me without a utility bill in my own name. Forget that. Sheesh.
Truthfully, I’ve never asked. More and more, I find myself going to the regional library because of the book selection, and while I’m there I might as well browse the videos, so if I do get a film from the library, that’s where I get it. I still go to the local branch out of sentiment (so many happy memories!) and I drop off stuff there, but I just don’t find as many things that I want to check out at the branch library.
My local supermarket has not only a Redbox, but also an entire video-rental section, with shelves and all, in the store. The selection probably isn’t as broad as a true stand-alone video store, but it has to be better than the Redbox.
The Stop and Shop in the Boston area used to have that, but closed it down decades ago. I still miss it – they had a pretty decent collection, with a lot of odd films. Not like the Blockbuster I was just in.
So what happens when you have a video and the slot is taped up and the store is closed? They just write them off?
I’m sure that’s the case. Heck, they’re selling used DVDs for under$10 apiece. What’s that compared to the cost of closing down the store, boxing up the DVDs, and shipping it elsewhere?
I wish I’d taken out a stack of my favorites before they shut this one down.
“Nothin’s really been right since Sam the Lion died.”
You can also look up the movies in a particular Red Box online. They usually have more movies in them than shows on the front panel, and they tell you what is currently in stock, live, so you don’t waste a trip.
My wife loves them. I’m into older movies, however, and their stock of those is not great.
Wow!
I learned about this trend here 2 days ago, and today I see our local Blockbuster is closing for good.