Blockbuster Declares Bankruptcy -- Now See What Big Company Will Drop Next

Business Insider ^ | 09/22/2010 | Gus Lubin

[Fundamentally Fair]

Yeah, successful businesses piss me off too. I sit in my hovel just praying for the day that I can dance on their grave. /s

[I Buried My Guns]

"...Does this mean I can keep Robin Hood that I rented yesterday?..."

Does this mean I MUST keep Bend It Like Beckham that I got in the mail from them yesterday? Because I really do not want to. It sucked. No boobage at all, and Kiera Knightley weighed about 80 pounds.

[TexasCajun]

NetFlix & Pay-for-view kicked their ass.

[Alberta's Child]

Good riddance to what I would definitely call a greedy company. They cornered the market,drove all the mom and pop stores out of existence, and then proceeded down a couple of decade path of screwing their customers in a virtual monopoly which ultimately became woefully inept at adapting to new technology and consumer preferences......Glad to see this.....

This is a very good point worth noting, for it illustrates how meaningless a "monopoly" is in most industries.

When a company has a monopoly for a product or service, they still have to keep doing business in a competitive manner even if they have no competitors to speak of -- because there's always the "unseen competitor" out there who will simply take advantage of low start-up costs and begin competing on short notice, or even (in the case of Netflix, Red Box, etc.) change the business completely.

[FReepaholic]

...They were doomed when they couldn’t counter Netflix. The instant watching on Netflix is worhless for me, but getting 3 Blu-rays at a time with no fuzz is just impossible to beat at $22...

I agree about the instant viewing w/Netflix. Lousy quality. I much prefer Blu-rays.

One thing I'll miss w/Blockbuster is the ability to take your DVD-by-mail disk to a local store and swap it for another DVD at no charge.

[RobRoy]

>>Only a few years ago, Movie Gallery had nice clean extremely well stocked stores all over this area. <<

On our early summer trip to Kentucky we got a lot of DVD’s dirt cheap at a Movie Gallery that was closing. I just got back from my “late summer” trip there and it is now a “Family Video”. I noticed that that company is also a chain, but I don’t know how big they are.

[SoCal Pubbie]

You do know that Blockbuster has their own version of Netflix, right? My wife and I use their service, but never go to one of their stores. I wonder if it will survive, or be gobbled up by their rival?

[Freddd]

Only a few years ago, Movie Gallery had nice clean extremely well stocked stores all over this area. Now they are defunct.

Probably Netflix.

17 posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 11:24:48 AM by yarddog-———————

In my area, they were fine until Blockbuster moved into the area...high advertising...

[jtal]

Netflix itself had better heed the lesson learned here.

While they are making a valiant effort re:streaming there is a lot of digital media competition out there: Amazon VOD, iTunes, HULU-plus just to name a few.

The day of the physical medium (DVD) may pass just as surely as VHS.

[Future Snake Eater]

Blockbuster clinging to their business model in the face of Netflix was like Nintendo clinging to cartridges with the Nintendo 64. They had dominated their particular markets for so long, they couldn’t see any other way of operating, and it bit them hard. Nintendo actually recovered, though, and I join in the chorus of “Good riddance” when it comes to Blockbuster.

[AFreeBird]

I’m only on the 9.99/month plan, don’t need more than one DVD mailed at a time, and the quick turnaround is fantastic. But for me, the real value is in the streaming.

I’ve been able to catch up, or visit, some shows I’ve missed over the years, and revisit some I didn’t.

And the iDevice Netflix app works great.

[bmwcyle]

One main problem with the industry is the movies suck.

[Gaffer]

There is a major difference between being “successful” and mistreating and overcharging customers after they’ve driven most of the competition out of town. Don’t even try to make it sound like I’m saying ‘success’ is a bad thing. I’ve had too much personal experience with BB to believe anything you might tell me differently.

[RJS1950]

You could substitute bookstores for Blockbuster and you have the same reality with regard to libraries.

[yesca]

So true, but w/Netflix you can get guitar lessons, old TV shows, lectures, etc., oh, excuse me, gotta go, the mailman's here with my Phyllis Diller DVD!

[RobRoy]

>>The day of the physical medium (DVD) may pass just as surely as VHS.<<

I’ll take it a step further.

People used to pay big bucks to get cylinder recordings a century ago that only played a few minutes. The concept of owning actual recorded music was downright “Jules Verne”. I bought a copy of Star Trek the Motion Picture on Beta for $105 and considered it a bargain. The idea of owning your own movie without commercials was downright, well, “Star Trek”.

Both mediums drastically improved and became huge industries but a funny thing happened: They also became commodities and the collective culture sort of took them for granted as a child gets tired of his blocks.

My core point is that not only do they have to consider competition that may bring the same commodity but in a different form, but they need to consider that the commodity itself (music and movies) becomes less and less valuable to the consumer. We now have a generation of teenagers in this country that see music as something you can easily download for free, and they treat it with the respect a free product deserves.

I said it in 1996 and I believe it actually happened: RECORDED music has become the “free toy in the happy meal”. The same is happening with movies and TV shows. Sure, people can, for a time, make good money on it, but Blockbuster was destined to fail when they opened the doors of their first store. It was never about if. It was about when, assuming they didn’t diversify into some other industry.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Eastman Kodak Company (I no longer own any cameras that use film).

---

If this company goes the way of Blockbuster, that would mean trouble for the city of Rochester, NY, where Kodak is headquartered. They are a big employer there.

[RobRoy]

>>One main problem with the industry is the movies suck.<<

This pretty much nails it for me too. We use the redbox near our home to rent movies. Admittedly they don’t have a huge choice, but we have gone to that thing and not found a single movie we wanted to see. And often when we do rent something new we’re sorry we rented it.

Did I say “often”? I should have said “usually”. There are just not that many good movies. One could argue that is the 800 lb gorilla in the room on this whole issue. It is really part of the point I was trying to make in my previous post.

[truth_seeker]

“I didn’t expect to see Porsche on the list, and certainly didn’t expect to see them at #2. I figured a luxury auto maker might be having problems these days, but I thought someone would buy them up for the name.”

Owned by VW Group. Porsche might go “bankrupt” but Porsche ain’t going out of business.

There is a complex ownership deal between them. Both are doing way, way better than their competitors.

[GonzoGOP]

There is a complex ownership deal between them. Both are doing way, way better than their competitors.

Thanks. It is always hard to pick out "real" bankruptcies from the accounting games.