No more late fees? Psssh, no more Blockbuster
The video store, you love it and you hate it. You love it because many times they have a good selection of movies, you hate it because many times those movies are out-of-stock. I have fond memories as a child of going to the local supermarket every Saturday night to pick out a couple movies and an occasional video game, it was such a great treat for us as kids. I liked it so much that when I worked for that supermarket many years later, I spent time working in the video department.
Unfortunately, the supermarket decided to close its video departments because of a waning interest and stiff competition from Blockbuster. In fact, my area used to have three video stores: Blockbuster, Video Vault of Nora, and the the supermarket’s video department. First the supermarket’s video department closed, then Video Vault decided to close their doors, and finally Blockbuster went out of business due to an organizational restructuring. Isn’t that nice? Blockbuster comes into the neighborhood, wipes out the competition, and then ends up leaving the neighborhood!
I say that to say this, Blockbuster is dead. In the days of video-on-demand, TiVo, Netflix, and the internet, we will not have a need for a brick-and-mortar video store. Here’s what we’re doing: the movie company digitally films the movie, burns that digital file to a disc, the discs are shipped to the store (in limited quantity), and we are forced to fight off the others for the lastest release.
Think about how we are able to do things with technology. The studios edit the films on computers, convert the file to a playable format (like Mp4 for iTunes) and can distribute it over the internet! You can see this at work in the iTunes Store. You can download a movie and watch it on your computer. Or, if you have Apple TV, you can stream the movie wirelessly from your computer to Apple TV.
This is just one application of how we deliver content. One of the most popular methods right now is pay-per-view or video on-demand. The cable/satellite company can take one or more copies of that movie file and distribute it to hundreds and thousands of customers at the same time. That’s right, no having to go out to the video store to find that the movie you want is out! You can order the movie in your underwear!
We’ve even seen DVD rental machines such as Redbox where you can rent a copy of a DVD for $1 a night using your credit or debit card. Redbox does have a few problems, it only features new releases, and there are only X amount of copies per machine. Second, you have to wait in line just to return a DVD if someone is using the machine. Third, some people will take FOREVER to pick their movie! Redbox is a good solution if you know what you want and are quick to get in and out.
So why is Blockbuster going to die? Stiff competition from these various avenues (video on-demand, Redbox, iTunes, Netflix) is taking away from Blockbuster’s business. If they stay around, they will be a ghost of their former glory. As customers become more technologically adept, we will see more demand for digital content delivered straight to our homes.
And what’s so bad about that? I can log on to the internet and watch movie trailers before ordering my movie! What can I do at a video store? Read the back of a box? Come on! The revolution is here and you’re seeing right before your eyes, with new players in the market, the video store as we know it is dead. So enjoy your local video store while you can because chances are they won’t be as widely available in 10 to 20 years.