Mr. Ambien Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 I miss Blockbuster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BI3KSA- Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 I miss Blockbuster Blockbuster was awful. Such a fat rip off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreFan1 Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 I just learned that there are still a few dozen Blockbuster franchisees still operating and I live 25-30 minutes from one of them!! Whoulda thunk it?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soshified Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Even though I stayed a customer of theirs until almost the end, I don't miss them one bit. They were a very arrogant and greedy company. They nickled and dimed their customers every chance they got. That only changed once they started getting their butts whooped by Netflix. It's more nostalgia for me. I miss the time of going in Blockbuster and spending time which movie to rent or looking forward of which movie i should rent out next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Offensive Threat Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 I just learned that there are still a few dozen Blockbuster franchisees still operating and I live 25-30 minutes from one of them!! Whoulda thunk it?! When Blockbuster went chapter 11 in 2010 its stores and other assets were purchased at auction by Dish Network for a very low price. Over the next few years Dish Network closed all of the company owned stores and now less than 50 franchisee owned stores remain. Dish still licences the Blockbuster brand name to those stores. Those stores are almost all in either Texas or Alaska. Fun fact: The last video rented at a corporate owned Blockbuster was in Hawaii on the final night before closure in 2013. It was "This Is The End" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreFan1 Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 When Blockbuster went chapter 11 in 2010 its stores and other assets were purchased at auction by Dish Network for a very low price. Over the next few years Dish Network closed all of the company owned stores and now less than 50 franchisee owned stores remain. Dish still licences the Blockbuster brand name to those stores. Those stores are almost all in either Texas or Alaska. Fun fact: The last video rented at a corporate owned Blockbuster was in Hawaii on the final night before closure in 2013. It was "This Is The End" Awesome. I may just go into the Blockbuster at some point for old times sake. Maybe post a few pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grapefruits Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 It's more nostalgia for me. I miss the time of going in Blockbuster and spending time which movie to rent or looking forward of which movie i should rent out next. There are still some video stores kicking around that aren't Blockbuster. I hated the big chain stores. When I was a kid all we had were the smaller mom and pop video stores. Places like Blockbuster killed the majority of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostsof1915 Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Save Black Dog Video in Vancouver!!!! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-black-dog-video#/story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonLever Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Somewhat related. Ten Dumbest Tech Predictions of all time. http://blogs.marketwatch.com/cody/2011/01/03/top-10-dumbest-tech-predictions-of-all-time/ 1. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876. 2. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. “The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most,” IBM executives to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959. 3. “Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18 000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1 000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1½ tons.” — Popular Mechanics, March 1949 4. “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” — Jack Valenti, MPAA president, testimony to the House of Representatives, 1982 5. “Do not bother to sell your gas shares. The electric light has no future.” —Professor John Henry Pepper, Victorian-era celebrity scientist, sometime in the 1870s 6. “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night,” Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946. 7. “The problem of TV was that people had to glue their eyes to a screen, and that the average American wouldn’t have time for it.” − The New York Times, 1939 8. “The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful.” Steve Jobs — Rolling Stone, Dec. 3, 2003 9. “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” — Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre 10. “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancaster Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Best Buy bought Future Shop, GM bought Cadillac, Sobeys bought Safeway...it's literally been happening for well over a century. When you buy a rival company, they are no longer your competitor. Except those are all companies buying competitors who does the exact same thing as themselves. Netflix is completely different from Blockbuster in practice. The success of one will be the destruction of the other, as how now Netflix has completely destroyed the retail rental market. At best, BB could have went from a lose-win situation instead of only lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcon45ca Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Except those are all companies buying competitors who does the exact same thing as themselves. Netflix is completely different from Blockbuster in practice. The success of one will be the destruction of the other, as how now Netflix has completely destroyed the retail rental market. At best, BB could have went from a lose-win situation instead of only lose. Except that the opportunity to purchase Netflix came before they did video streaming, when the company was very much set up as a video rental company similar to Blockbuster in many respects...so ya... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreFan1 Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 Actually even before Blockbuster attempted to get their streaming to go mainstream, Netflix already had them "down for the count". Their physical store rentals went way down and their DVD by mail copycat of Netflix was getting crushed. They just had so much previous ill will directed towards them because of their rip-off business practices that people kept flocking to Netflix. Netflix streaming was just the coup de grace that shortly thereafter put Blockbuster out of it's misery. Like I said before, had Blockbuster just bought Netflix and brought Reed Hastings in with it to run it, they would have become an unstoppable Juggernaut. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Worst.Business.Decision.ever..... (With maybe the exception of the whole AOL-Time Warner fiasco) Former Blockbuster CEO, John Antioco, turned down an offer to buy Netflix in 2000 for $50 Million. Of course the rest is history as Netflix went on to bankrupt and kill Blockbuster years later. Now Netflix is worth just shy of $33 Billion. I still remember racking up all of those crazy Blockbuster late fees from returning the VHS tapes and then DVD's past their due date. http://www.businessinsider.com/blockbuster-ceo-passed-up-chance-to-buy-netflix-for-50-million-2015-7 I don't know about that... Pepsi-Cola’s financial situation was so bad that three times between 1922 and 1934, Pepsi-Cola approached Coca-Cola and offered to sell out to their competitor. All three times Coca-Cola rejected their offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreFan1 Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 I don't know about that... Pepsi-Cola’s financial situation was so bad that three times between 1922 and 1934, Pepsi-Cola approached Coca-Cola and offered to sell out to their competitor. All three times Coca-Cola rejected their offer. Coca Cola and Pepsi are still in business. Although I actually thought of one that was just as or nearly as bad as Blockbuster's. Bill Gates/Microsoft convinced/suckered IBM to put PC's in the public domain. Had IBM said no, they would have controlled and sold every PC made. There would be no such thing as a $450 computer today. IBM would currently be selling them at a huge mark-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Coca Cola and Pepsi are still in business. Although I actually thought of one that was just as or nearly as bad as Blockbuster's. Bill Gates/Microsoft convinced/suckered IBM to put PC's in the public domain. Had IBM said no, they would have controlled and sold every PC made. There would be no such thing as a $450 computer today. IBM would currently be selling them at a huge mark-up. Netflix wasn't doing streaming at the time - so in BB's defense, they didn't know that Netflix was going to take off... that's like saying "If I knew Apple was going to take off I would have bought stock in them in Dec 1980" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreFan1 Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 Netflix wasn't doing streaming at the time - so in BB's defense, they didn't know that Netflix was going to take off... that's like saying "If I knew Apple was going to take off I would have bought stock in them in Dec 1980" I know they didn't have streaming then. That's why I said that once Netflix did start streaming, that finally put a dagger into Blockbuster's heart. There was no coming back from that. Everybody wishes they bought Apple stock way back when. I still remember when Microsoft had to buy a butt load of Apple stock in order to keep Apple in business. Had Apple folded, Microsoft was warned by the government that it could be forced to break itself up in order to keep it from having a near monopoly over the software industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heretic Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 I know they didn't have streaming then. That's why I said that once Netflix did start streaming, that finally put a dagger into Blockbuster's heart. There was no coming back from that. Everybody wishes they bought Apple stock way back when. I still remember when Microsoft had to buy a butt load of Apple stock in order to keep Apple in business. Had Apple folded, Microsoft was warned by the government that it could be forced to break itself up in order to keep it from having a near monopoly over the software industry. My point was that it wasn't "the worst business decision ever" - in retrospect, it was more just an "oops, we could have..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreFan1 Posted July 20, 2015 Author Share Posted July 20, 2015 My point was that it wasn't "the worst business decision ever" - in retrospect, it was more just an "oops, we could have..." Way more than an oops, but I'll admit that I changed my mind the next day after I made that post. It was a terrible decision, but I started to think of others that were just as bad or depending on a person's point of view, even worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruletherink Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 I remember YouTube being the only place to find the SNL digital short 'Lazy Sunday' online. I think that one clip helped them get so much recognition at the time. Google bought em to replace their own lame Google Video foray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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