Blockbuster Video Now Has Just One Store Left On Earth (apnews.com)

Cutting_Crew writes: After the last remaining Blockbuster Video store closed in Australia on March 31st, there is only one remaining left on earth. That location is in Bend, Oregon and seems to be a thriving location, where they write out membership cards by hand and the system is rebooted using floppy disks, apparently only something one person, the general manager, knows how to do. If you are wondering how there could be still blockbuster videos open since they went bankrupt back in 2010, the remaining stores left open were independent franchises and were separate from most of the other corporate stores, thus not part of the bankruptcy. There was also an Onion video before they even went bankrupt that's pretty funny. I remember getting a membership way back in late 90s and new releases were $8 per night. Even then, that seemed way too expensive. What are your most memorable (good or bad) memories of your local blockbuster?

Comments

I wish there were more video stores

[DogDude]

I miss video stores. I miss them almost daily. Streaming has no selection at all. Netflix's DVD service isn't bad, but it takes a week or so to get something that I want to see. I miss being able to get a pizza and a movie to watch over dinner. I have a huge video collection at home, but getting new stuff is still a PITA (order through Netflix DVD).

Re:I wish there were more video stores

[Bluecobra]

Check and see if there's a Family Video near you, they're still thriving.

Re:I wish there were more video stores

[Anubis IV]

I miss video stores. I miss them almost daily. Streaming has no selection at all.

Quite the contrary. In order of film selection size, from least to greatest (based on the latest numbers I could find in a quick search), here's how the various services stack up (unless otherwise noted, all of the below are streaming services):

Blockbuster (retail): 500-1K*
HBO: 815
Hulu: 2.3K
Netflix: 3.8K
Amazon Prime: 17.5K
Vudu: 18K
Redbox On Demand: 20K**
iTunes Store: 65K
Netflix (DVD): Over 100K

Even if you're doing the apples-to-oranges comparison of Netflix subscription vs. video store rentals, Netflix has the better selection by a wide margin, but once you start comparing today's video rental streaming services against the video store rental services of yesteryear, you're talking about orders of magnitude more films being available today. Not only that, but you can instantly rent a movie from any of the aforementioned services for less than the cost that you were paying at Blockbuster 20 years ago, which just goes to show how horrible the situation back then really was.

* You may see mention of Blockbuster stores having 8,000-10,000 films. That's either the 9,000-ish that their now-defunct streaming service had or the number of cassettes/discs they had in inventory (most of which would have been in the stacks of new releases that lined the walls of every store), not the number of unique titles to choose from. The numbers in the list above reflect the best estimates I could find for the actual number of unique titles available at any given store.

** The only numbers I could find were 7K at launch (i.e. several years ago) and 20K as an estimate provided by an executive for what they expected to have in their catalog by the middle of 2018. I went with 20K, since I figure it's closest to the actual number, but I wanted to be sure to disclose that uncertainty.

On Earth???

[Blinkin1200]

That tells me there may be more stores 'out there' some place and we just haven't found them yet.

First sentence? Editors?

[LynnwoodRooster]

After the last remaining Blockbuster Video store closed in Australia on March 31st, there is only one remaining left on earth.

Was it the last remaining Blockbuster Video or not? If there is still one remaining, then the one closed on Australia was the next to last remaining Blockbuster store...

Re:They let someone else use our account one time

[flink]

Similar late fee problem here -- except it was for a movie that had been rented (and forgotten). Returned it weeks before and finally wanted a new rental. The late fees came to something like $96. I laughed at them and offered to buy the movie instead ($40 range). They declined. They wanted their ridiculous late fees.

They're not charging you for the price of the physical DVD. They are charging you for the lost revenue they could have been making renting it out to others while you were holding on to it. If they only expected to make $40 per copy of a movie, of course they would go out of business (sooner than they did) - they aren't even covering their overhead at that point. Every rental business is predicated on making more than the cost of the item back by charging more than it is worth if you had bought it outright.

Re:They let someone else use our account one time

[DarkOx]

So let me tell how your cool story actually reads:

Similar late fee problem here -- except it was for a movie that had been rented (and forgotten). Returned it weeks before and finally wanted a new rental

I was irresponsible and failed to honor my obligations as set forth in the rental agreement. I put my late return in the box and hoped I'd get away with it. Even though I really should have known better; because its not like they don't track these things..

The late fees came to something like $96. I laughed at them and offered to buy the movie instead ($40 range). They declined. They wanted their ridiculous late fees.

I don't understand anything about how the licensing works for commercial video rental media or the profit model the video rental industry operated on at the time. My ignorance is so cool right guys?

The conversation got a bit heated (me :) and they reminded me they had my credit card on file and would just charge it anyway.

I threw a tantrum but the clerk in the store remained clam and did his job like a professional.

I declined. Excused myself to "think about it" and go find another movie to rent (not). Went to the back of the store, called the bank, and cancelled the card in question.

Rather than accept and pay the debt I legitimately incurred; I moved to skip out on the bill. Also I stupid because the fact is they still have my name and address and they could easily slam my credit and send the debt to collections. Which would and very well may have cost me a lot more than $96 in long run..

Handed them my non-rentals on the way out the door (why should I put them back?). Let them know as I was passing to go ahead and close the account and "good luck" getting any charges through. They were bankrupt within a year.

I continued to behave like a dick, and probably only avoided debt collections and negative credit report issues because the company was already struggling and probably short staffed. Thanks at least in a very small part to my shitty behavior a business owner lost their franchise. Yeah! me!