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Wild to see
Rise and Fall of Blockbuster
Crazy to think they could’ve bought Netflix and scoffed at it.
It was part of “date night”. Walk around the store pick a movie or 2 and hope judging a movie by its cover paid off with something watchable
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Me too
...back before you could stand in the store and look up movie recommendations on your phone.
Yep. It truly was a lot of guesswork, but so much fun.
I used to love going to Blockbuster to rent movies.
Lou W
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Yep….and sears could have been amazon
One of my first jobs was at blockbuster. And yes we hated those of you who didn’t rewind your VHS tapes! Meant it took us longer to close as we had to stick them in the machines to do it.
I live in Kodak-land. The stubbornness of that company is mind-boggling.
I honestly miss just going to Blockbuster (or Family Video which we went to more often) and just grabbing a movie because the cover looked interesting. Some some great films that way, and some incredibly bad ones as well.
I honestly went for the video games. Getting that sweet sweet copy of Metal Gear Solid 3 was the golden ticket. Man I miss those days.
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What’s even crazier is all they would have done with it is shelve it or brand the mail order stuff as Blockbuster. How long before streaming became a thing if that happened? Would streaming have become a thing?
Two fun Blockbuster memories:
1) I worked at one during HS - was a wild time as DVDs started to phase out VHS in mass, but was always fun to see the random tapes come in that had to be rewound.
2) A couple years ago, I visited the LAST Blockbuster located in Bend, Oregon. Was absolutely wild to see one still open and operating. I've heard they rent out the space next to it as an AirBNB.
1) I worked at one during HS - was a wild time as DVDs started to phase out VHS in mass, but was always fun to see the random tapes come in that had to be rewound.
2) A couple years ago, I visited the LAST Blockbuster located in Bend, Oregon. Was absolutely wild to see one still open and operating. I've heard they rent out the space next to it as an AirBNB.
That’s is just crazy to see.
I miss the out-takes and features that DVDs used to have that you no longer get with streaming
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Explaining life without the internet blew my kid's mind. "How did you live like that?!"
I think Blockbuster was timed perfectly to showcase how being online changed our day to day lives.
I think Blockbuster was timed perfectly to showcase how being online changed our day to day lives.
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I remember having both blockbuster and Netflix and then something where I traded in Netflix envelopes for rentals at the store. Around 2007
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That is wild and sad. It’s interesting all of the new stuff like Netflix, Amazon, etc that were mentioned in here already are basically designed for us to never leave the house. Think about that for a second.
Ahhh the good ol days - seriously was so fun to walk the aisles and figure what you could rent on a Friday night. And if you were good, you got a big box of candy as well.
Not to mention DoorDash, etc.
My wife goes grocery shopping and never leaves her chair. She orders it all on her phone and it's delivered to our front door 45 minutes later.