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Blockbuster About to Bite Big One... Muhahaha!

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-brutal-end-to-blockbuster-story-2064032.html

Enjoy the neon lighting and over-priced junk food while you can.


Blockbuster, the video rental chain which at one time seemed to have a blue-and-yellow presence in every strip mall in America, is teetering on the brink of collapse and may file for bankruptcy in the US as early as next month.



In a move that may represent the final nail in the coffin for the neighbourhood video store, the firm's executives are said to have held meetings this week with all six of the so-called "major" Hollywood studios at which they unveiled plans to enter a pre-planned insolvency in the middle of September.
Declining public appetite for DVD rentals, together with increased competition from mail-order rivals such as Netflix, the US version of LoveFilm, have destroyed the firm's business model. It has lost $1.1bn (£710m) since the start of 2008, and was forced to shutter more than a thousand of its American outlets in the past year alone.



The company now has roughly 3,500 US stores left, making it the country's last major franchise to remain in existence (its nearest rival, Hollywood Video, went under earlier this year). It has recently been sorely hurt by a growing number of vending machines which rent films for as little as a dollar a day.
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I remember about 2 years ago, maybe 3, we had a real big thread where we voted "Netflix or Blockbuster" type of thing.

Well, here we are.

While Blockbuster surely won't vanish, it's nice to see them truly de-throned. Their service has always sucked, their prices where always too high, and oh those annoying late fees!

Karma, baby. Karma.
 
Hm, I have two of them within spitting distance of where I live. One has already closed and the other is probably going soon. I used to be an avid customer years ago, but the whole procedure of renting and then returning got old. So... oh well. *shrugs*
 
Meh. Blockbuster used to be important, but technology has changed and the company's business model needed to adapt in order to keep up. They didn't do a very good job about that, so now they've lost the video rental war to Netflix and RedBox. This comes as a shock to absolutely no one. I ditched Blockbuster for Netflix a few years ago. It's cheaper and I get more bang for my buck - unlimited DVD rentals plus unlimited streaming. Poor Blockbuster just couldn't keep up.
 
All Blockbuster had to do to stay in business was charge $1 a day for movies like everybody else. Problem solved.
 
honestly, who cares? To chirp about it all the time, with a "muhahaha!"? I mean, really? Yeah, they didn't keep up, and are losing out, but so what? These threads have about the same feel as the guys who come into a thread about a tv show and gloat that it's getting cancelled. Did Blockbuster kill your father or something? :lol:
 
Just as they destroyed (and did so gleefully) the Mom and Pop video stores they themselves are being swept away by the new 'in' thing.
 
Starbreaker said:
All Blockbuster had to do to stay in business was charge $1 a day for movies like everybody else. Problem solved.
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Err, no, because presumably they have overhead costs they have to accommodate, costs that mail-order services don't have. You can't stay in business if you charge too little to break even.

I for one would lament the loss of Blockbuster. It was good having a place to rent new titles rather than having to wait a month or longer to get them from Netflix. And no company should ever have a monopoly. Netflix is a good service overall, but they're often lacking in titles I want to see. I have a number of things in my Netflix queue that became unavailable before they rose to the top, I guess because the disks were lost or stolen by earlier renters, and not a single one of them has ever been restocked. It would be good to have alternative rental providers with different selections.
 
Eh, I'm sure the last company that made buggy whips made one hell of a buggy whip before being replaced by the Model-T.

Now I want to watch Other People's Money, for some reason...
 
Death to Blockbuster!

Sorry, worked for them one summer...one bad, bad, summer.

There was about 4 of them around us, but all but one is shuttered (along with Hollywood Video and Game Crazy). The last Blockbuster within reasonable distance to me, and that I know of, put up their "store closing" sign late last week.
 
The few people I know who still used Blockbuster complained of being charged late fees even when they weren't late, or being charged for an entire dvd when only late one day. Apparently, this was a common complaint where I used to live, and the bad word of mouth killed the business.

I have Netflix and LOVE it, but I'm not one of those people who has to rent a movie RIGHT NOW, as I have cable and more than enough to watch as it is.

Between video games, Netflix, and cable TV, I always have something for my nieces and nephews to watch or play with, and hubby and I are MORE than entertained with what we've got.

Frankly, I'm surprised the brick-and-mortar stores held out as long as they did.
 
I'm kind of sad to see Blockbuster go, but only in the same way I'm sad to see Hollywood Video go. I grew up in a time when movie night meant going to the local supermarket, renting a VHS tape, then renting the VCR, ordering a pizza and the family watches a movie together. My most vivid memories include the movies "Back to the Beach" and "Turner and Hooch".

Now I'm tearing up for some reason. If you'll excuse me... :lol:
 
I feel sorry for all those people who are going to lose their jobs. One of my students actually works part-time at a Blockbuster store here in town.
 
Yes I imagine this will be the end of the stores proper, followed by an online push or kiosk attempt. What I wonder is, what's going to happen to all those empty stores? For all the new things that get built, strips and shopping complexes, more and more spaces just remain empty. It would be magical if Gamestop and Moviestop could make some sort of deal to buy out several locations. I don't know why Moviestop is only an East coast or obscure store.
 
auntiehill said:
The few people I know who still used Blockbuster complained of being charged late fees even when they weren't late, or being charged for an entire dvd when only late one day. Apparently, this was a common complaint where I used to live, and the bad word of mouth killed the business.
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The hubby and I never used Blockbuster again for the same reason. We have NetFlix and LOVE it. But, what finally did Blockbuster in for us was back when I was still working. We live out in the suburbs and we both worked near downtown. They tried to tell us that the movie was returned after 2 that day! I told the guy, "if it was there that day, it was there at 7 am because I go downtown for work and don't come back out here until after 5". He wanted to argue with me but I refused to pay it. He said, "I'll take the fee off but I'm gonna note in your account about this incident" (:rolleyes:) and I said, "Please do". And that was the last they ever got our business...and we were renting with them regularly.

NetFlix is a DREAM to deal with! Their customer service is amazing. :bolian:
 
auntiehill said:
The few people I know who still used Blockbuster complained of being charged late fees even when they weren't late, or being charged for an entire dvd when only late one day. Apparently, this was a common complaint where I used to live, and the bad word of mouth killed the business.

I have Netflix and LOVE it, but I'm not one of those people who has to rent a movie RIGHT NOW, as I have cable and more than enough to watch as it is.

Between video games, Netflix, and cable TV, I always have something for my nieces and nephews to watch or play with, and hubby and I are MORE than entertained with what we've got.

Frankly, I'm surprised the brick-and-mortar stores held out as long as they did.
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I'll tell you why that happens or did happens: Lazy ass employees.

At the store I worked at, we only checked the drop box once a week, the outside one far less frequently. Your tape was in there and we didn't check it back in before the late-date, you were just fucked. If you came and challenged us and said you dropped it and made us look for it, we'd take the charges off. And we were the norm for our area. Hand it to us, unless you made us check it in right then, we just chucked it in the drop box.

Whenever it was slow, I'd check in the drop box (about twice a day) till the DM came down and bitched me out for costing them "revenue" cause our late-fee generation started going down. After that, I was banned from checking tapes in. They actually fired a girl I worked with for checking tapes in, "not completing assigned tasks" (officially), unofficially she was causing fees to go down. Not to long after that I quit.
 
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TheGallifreyanSith said:
I'll tell you way that happens or did happens: Lazy ass employees.

At the store I worked at, we only checked the drop box once a week, the outside one far less frequently. Your tape was in there and we didn't check it back in before the late-date, you were just fucked. If you came and challenged us and said you dropped it and made us look for it, we'd take the charges off. And we were the norm for our area. Hand it to us, unless you made us check it in right then, we just chucked it in the drop box.

Whenever it was slow, I'd check in the drop box (about twice a day) till the DM came down and bitched me out for costing them "revenue" cause our late-fee generation started going down. After that, I was banned from checking tapes in. They actually fired a girl I worked with for checking tapes in, "not completely assigned tasks" (officially), unofficially she was causing fees to go down. Not to long after that I quit.
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somehow this doesn't surprise me, but I was only charged a late fee when I was truly late. I would pay it whenever I rented my next movie. One time we didn't rent a movie for a couple of months and received a collection letter from Blockbuster for $2.17. I went in and paid it then demanded to see the manager and made her deactivate my account.

The bitch told me that they'd keep my information in the computer for 6 months as a courtesy since 'you'll be back'
That was 8 years ago and they're having a going out of business sale. Bye Bye Blockbuster.
 
I'm more sorry for the employees at my local Blockbuster than anything else. Most of them are nice enough and never gave me problems but the business itself has long been on its last legs and not moved with the times.

Much like the RIAA or MPAA who very nearly fell into the same pitfall before they realized digital was a part of the future and no amount of postponing it would slow it down. I still am not a big fan of how digital works right now but it's a new and fledgling system so in a few years maybe they'll get it right. But that still leaves no gap for places like Blockbuster to work with if they keep trying to mainly do physical rentals and charge more than the competition.

I've recently gone to Netflix. I'm not a big movie renter but with almost next-day delivery rentals, no late fees and free *legal* online streaming it's become much more practical for me to see movies or television series.
 
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