Video Rental Stores

A couple of weeks go the last Blockbuster in Australia closed down leaving only one Blockbuster in the entire world (Bend, Oregon). I have a couple of questions to ask

1) are there any video rental stores left in your city/town?
2) When was the last time you rented a DVD from a video rental store?

Hobart only has one store left, a Video City that is located on the other side of the river from me. I would have to catch two buses there and two buses back to visit it.

There used to be about 5 video rental stores I near me. The last time I rented a video was soon after I moved to my current home, so about 11 or 12 years ago. For a while I used to have rented DVD posted out to me but I stopped that about 8 years ago and now we just stream movies/TV shows.

 

1. We no longer have video rental stores where I live. We do have two Redbox kiosks, but that's not really a store.

2. Aside from the Redbox kiosk (which would have been a year ago), the last time I rented a DVD from a video store would have been around 2006.

 

Netflix is still a video rental store.

There are a few around here and there in lower income areas.

 

I know of 1 RedBox rental machine in my area. I last rented a disk sometime in the 2008 time frame....

 

The shop I work at used to have a rental service, but we stopped that close to two years ago. We were the last Video Rental Store in the region. There used to be a couple of Video Rental Kiosks around, but even of those I know some closed down, and the rest I'm not sure if they're still open.

 

There are a lot of RedBoxes around here, but that's it.

 

Outside of Netflix, which I stopped getting DVD's from several years back, the last time I went to a physical movie rental place was around 2010. I remember because it was a Blockbuster going out of business and I got Star Trek 2009 there cheap. The last time I rented a movie though? That would probably be 2008 or maybe 2009.

We actually still have a DVD/Blu-ray movie rental store here but I haven't been to it in closer to 15-16 years. Every so often I'm tempted to go in and just see what they actually have.

 

None around anymore, the last one closed in the early 2000's

 

No, it's not the same.Video stores would have at least most of the new releases. Sometimes it was hard to get your first choice of movies. Blockbuster would sometimes have exclusive content but would still have the other new movies. As far as I know, video stores didn't get rid of an entire studio's catalog because of an expired contract.
When I worked at a video store I was much better than Netflix 's algorithm at helping my customers find something good to watch.

 

They (Video/DVD shops) are still thriving in many Pacific Asian countries where streaming has yet to gain popularity with consumers and/or tech hasn't caught up.

 

I’m not talking about the streaming, they still ship DVDs with a far less limited selection.

 

At least 3 "RedBox" kiosks here of which I am aware, but probably there's more. the BlockBuster we did have closed around 2010 or earlier because it was turned into a pet supply store. My cousin who was a roommate for 4 and a half years loved to go there to get her "puppy fix" as her dog was at home in another state.

There was a regional chain called Video Warehouse that finally closed around 2 years ago. I just missed the "liquidation sale" as I had hoped to get a few Godzilla DVDs.

 

My local Blockbuster is now one of those Banquet Halls for rent. My local Hollywood video is now an IHOP (good food).

As for Red Box, that thing is like Walmart in these parts they keep popping up. It seems like there's one both inside and outside of every grocery store, pharmacy and (yes) Walmart, in the area.

 

To answer your questions

1.>Nope
2.>It's been that long I can't remember. Maybe 15+ years ago.

 

My local libraries still do video rentals. They charge for the service so I guess it counts.

 

There are a couple independent video rental places in my area that have good selections of obscure indie and foreign cinema (which tend to be high-priced if you want to buy them), in addition to the latest hit movies. These rental places are in more well-off areas. And one of them is also a craft beer shop.

Yes, there are still those who prefer to patronize local community businesses instead of going to some faceless Redbox machine.

Kor

 

Same for me, though our last local video store probably only closed about nine years ago (though about fifteen years since I last went in).

 

Yep.

Just recently. I generally rent new releases when I can, sometimes I rent games.

 

I had one of those independent stores near me. They were there before all the Blockbusters and Movie Gallerys. Unfortunately they closed down a few months ago.

 

There are still a few Family Videos in the area.