Blockbuster: The Rise & Fall

Although this is somewhat different from what I generally do, I feel obliged to write about how Blockbuster has ultimately come to be no more. The pictures seen above are from the store in Rockville, MD. This is the 2nd closest  Blockbuster to me. There is also one in Silver Spring, MD that is very close to my house, and it is also closing down. In the following blog..I will talk about my theories of the downfall of Blockbuster. Let me preface my arguments, however, by saying that my local Blockbusters started their closing sales not too long ago and are closing on February 19th according to the employees. I say this because generally when a big company closes down, they have a longer store closing sale than just a month and a half. Now, without further ado..my theories of why this once huge chain is no more. My first theory is that while Blockbuster won the battle by being a nostalgic market, it lost the war to Netflix by not having some kind of streaming program. Netflix has a streaming program that allows people to watch new releases, older titles, and even hard to find titles instantly, while with Blockbuster, all they had was mailed DVD's and Blu Rays and store trade in. This meant that, unlike with Netflix, you had to wait for the movie you wanted to watch. This is not to say the Blockbuster mail-in program won't stay standing, just that the stores are all going down because of the previously mentioned statement. My next theory is that Blockbuster can not compete with Redbox. Redbox has way over 20,000 kiosks in which you could rent a movie at the touch of a screen, while Blockbuster had only a few hundred stores, and therefore paled in comparison to Redbox. My third, and final theory is that with companies like Apple, and the recently torn down Megavideo, people can download movies and TV shows in the safety and comfort of their own home, and in that being in the case, did not need or even want to drive out to get a movie to watch. Even further proof of this is that Netflix is even competing highly with these companies. Blockbuster's downfall is sad for old school movie lovers like myself, but it is a good chance for film buffs to get some great deals on DVD's as the prices go down more and more.