Blockbuster closing 600 stores on April 1st

[Ilya]

I have never tried Blockbuster's disk by mail service - have been happily using Netflix, but my experience with the local stores was not very pleasant:

Blockbuster has killed pretty much all smaller local rental stores around, while not offering the best collection, and while being twice more expensive.

Blockbuster was always late to the game: late to adopt DVD and late to embrace HD. Personally, I don't mind to see them go...

 

[SatinKzo]

Didn't blockbuster have the option to buy netflix long ago and the remark was something like "netflix is a niche, it won't catch on".

Blockbuster played "me-too" all along... Slow to DVD, slow to get HD or BD en mass, slow to by mail options (but I did really enjoy the store swap feature before they re-did some rules on it, slow to streaming/download, slow to kiosk. No real partnerships with CE companies like netflix to push the product to most devices people buy. They never innovated, merely copied, but their copy was like the old Ditto machines without a clearly defined edge and lacking real focus/sharpness. Netflix only became a worthwhile alternative for us when they got streaming off the PC exclusively and into our electronics. Never mind the decline in BB mail centers turn around times (although that has plagued us lately with netflix)

Their stores always seemed to be in pretty high-rent locations and while most stores were clean, some of them had odd things the last few years, like book sections, odd electronics and a couple I saw even had coinstars in them? Found that so odd since coinstar owns redbox.