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Bonus #36 - How Blockbuster Could Have Won (Extra Dose)

🕑 Added 2020-09-22 19:01:56 +0000 UTC

Comments

J-mann

it did it was literally an online rental store that got rich because it cut out the middle man of needing to go outside to rent so even in its youngest model it still had Blockbuster beat!

Josue guzman

Didnt Netflix start out as a dvd rental as well?

Paint Gurus

Hey Buckley 1 word "Plex", gives you everything you want , sort of like Spotify only for viewing puposes

Jew With A Clue

i remember renting resident evil 4. they the OGs

Ash Archer

As someone who lives without good internet (yep, in 2021)... I miss blockbuster

Adam Buckley

The biggest challenge obviously is if they have to buy movies for practically the same price as the rest of us, which companies would probably do if that were the case (if Blockbuster continued to exist, Disney probably wouldn't wholesale a few thousand copies of a movie they're trying to push on Disney+ for cheap), and I'm told there was a time when Blockbuster had to pay like $70 for a VHS tape (although there was a time in the early 80s when VHS tapes were very expensive). So they'd have to rent that movie like 10, 15 times before they really started profiting on it, which is why they got pissed when you had a 2-day rental and you didn't bring it back... they needed to turn that fucker around!

Adam Buckley

You know, Blockbuster never sent anyone over to make sure I was actually watching their stuff. "Are you awake? Are you ok? You've just watched 6 Jean-Claude Van Damme movies back to back, and one of them was Street Fighter. Are you sure you don't want to take a break?"

Beep Boop

I never thought about the licensing rights with blockbuster but it’s interesting how that shit works.

Adam Buckley

Digital still has the issues that physical doesn't have, and so unfortunately Amazon can offer quite a few movies but not quite everything. I was looking through Amazon for a few movies recently, like I really want to rewatch Karate Kid 2 and 3 because I haven't seen them probably since I was like 13 years old. But Amazon only seems to have 2 for rent, not 3.

Connor Aitken

I never had a subscription but my friend's dad had one and it was great I remember the polite reminder to please rewind the tapes after watching that most people ignored. You would make a night of Blockbuster though get some snacks maybe a pizza and pick up the film ah good times. Now we sit and watch episode after episode of a series that auto play themselves for hours until it finally stops itself to check if you want to commit another hour and half of your life.

Ed Thee Goose

Amazon rentals too. You can rent almost any major movie for between $3-6 for 2 days, or "buy" it for between $10-20. You do not even need prime. For the longest time, I never subscribed to streaming and just did that.

Pete Spicer

Even that doesn't fly though; there's plenty of content I would happily buy if it were on any of Apple/iTunes, Google Play or even Amazon Prime... I have found myself acquiring DVDs for things as that seems to be becoming easier these days...

Balur

I can't really agree with this one, since most things are buyable / rentable on Google Play (or similar services), and they're around the same price point that Blockbuster was. This is the successor to Blockbuster, Netflix isn't.