Current Events > Should Blockbuster come back?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Movie rentals

i dont have a vhs/dvd/bluray player anymore...

I wonder if all the boomers that yelled at us college kids back in the day for purposely putting late fees on their accounts because they returned movies 3 days late and hoped we would go out of business and lose our jobs are finally happy Blockbuster is gone.

I only ever used them to rent games back in the day, so yes. Gamefly exists, but they are so slow with mailing out games.

I'd use one for at least a little bit if one opened back up here again

I mean we technically have one left

No, screw that. Too expensive for what it is. Streaming is actually a better value if you watch a lot of movies/shows even if a lot of the services are overpriced these days.

Might be worth it for video games, though.

I did like the 5 day rentals for video games. It was enough time to play through a game's single player campaign, and be done with it for good. But as much as I like going to a video store to rent games and movies, the Internet is just as good of an alternative, and a lot less expensive if you know where to go and what to do.

There's no way it - or rental stores in general - could feasibly come back. It seems like something where people would be excited that it's coming back, and then would after stop going after a couple of times because it's just unnecessary now.

But it isn't gone. There's still the one in Bend, Oregon.

It's not going to be feasible, and any attempt would crash and burn, if that's what you mean.

But if you mean, would it be fun and nostalgic, sure.

There's no point in it anymore since streaming is a thing. The internet killed it for good.

You know what video stores are still around? Adult video stores. That surprised me when I went vacationing to Spokane, earlier in the year.

I'm trying to figure out why they're still around. When their movies are just as easily accessible on the Internet, if not more so with the Adult websites having full movies on them. Free to watch.

Smiffwilm posted...

But it isn't gone. There's still the one in Bend, Oregon.

It's also a tourist attraction/museum, where you can go in to look all the things on display from Hollywood. And I'm sure that Blockbuster makes their money selling merchandise, along with rentals, to help them stay afloat.

I love it and wish it would come back.

Also I have a Blockbuster hoodie and it's the best for conversation starters, so many people have nostalgia for it lol

Depending on your local market you could feasibly get a video game rental store profitable, I'm not so sure about a movie rental place though.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

This.

But I would love to see Circuit City and Frys Electronics back.

There is no value in physical rentals unless they're sufficiently cheap and don't have bogus fees. The convenience of renting a movie on YouTube or Amazon is far greater than driving to a store

No I just miss the time tho

FL81 posted...

This.

But I would love to see Circuit City and Frys Electronics back.

Circuit City sucked. I bought several laptops from them that were all suds, my hometown circuit City was always a mess (especially the music section) and I bought an open box desktop from them once that smelled like it had been in a fire.

What the world needs is more MicroCenters

I'm gunna go against the grain.

I think bringing back video stores isn't an inherently terrible idea.

The thing is, while the utility for video rentals are long past - for a lot of people it was about the experience.

With how expensive games are getting, bringing back rentals actually makes sense.

IDK, I think you could do it. I don't think you would have a mom and pop on every street corner again, but sort of an atmospheric hipsterish place could work out.