I live in a small town. Growing up, we had a locally owned movie rental place (Betty Mae’s Video). When I was a teenager we got a Movie Gallery.
Both have closed now due to Redbox. I wanted Alice and Wonderland today and was going to get it at Movie Gallery, only to remember they’re closed.
Have other movie “stores” been replaced in your towns by Redbox and Netflix?
It didn’t have ‘Alice’ btw… I have “It’s Complicated” 
used to have two blockbuster stores some what close…now they are closed… alot of redbox now and yes most I know go for netflix.
We had a bunch of small video stores. The large chains moved in and drove them out of business. Now Netflix/Roku drove them out of business. I guess they were right in the late '90s early 2000’s when they said the internet would die.
I hope kindles don’t kill bookstores.
Do you get the sense that eventually, we will have nothing but computers running everything? We’ll develop a pill with a day’s nutrition in it and not need to eat aside from that; read online; work online; bank online…
I hope kindles don’t kill bookstores.
Do you get the sense that eventually, we will have nothing but computers running everything? We’ll develop a pill with a day’s nutrition in it and not need to eat aside from that; read online; work online; bank online…
Kinkles would have killed books but now Apple will.
We aren’t very far away from your second statement.
BTW - I love my library (I wish it was larger). The internet for the convenient, but there is nothing like a good hard cover book. I suppose I get it from my parents. My father grew up in a region of the world that was devastated by war. They burned all their books, destroyed artifacts, pretty much anything and everything that resembled their history.
I hope kindles don’t kill bookstores…
I actually do think books are going to stay around for awhile. People still have a desire to read without power. I don’t see that completely disappearing for one more generation.
Movies? MY GOD I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love Blockbuster Total Access. We watch probably 2-4 per month and it’s just PERFECT for us.
Hollywood and Blockbustrer just closed in the same month and all we have is redbox.
“Do you get the sense that eventually, we will have nothing but computers running everything?”
Scientists say that, by the year 2025, computer processing power will exceed the power of the human brain.
Movie rental places are so 1990’s. Why go to a place to try to rent a movie where you can rent it online and get quality better than DVD?
Where I live at, all the mom and pops stores are closed, most Blockbuster’s have closed, and all Hollywood Videos have closed. Do you remember Wherehouse? This trend happened way before Redbox appeared. Redbox serves a different market and was never a competitor to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.
Renting online is faster and cheaper. No late charges ever. And if the movie is really good, I will buy the blu ray version.
They only negatives are:
Its no different than music. Do you buy CDs still? iTunes has a huge share of the market for music. Only time for videos.
“Do you get the sense that eventually, we will have nothing but computers running everything?”
Scientists say that, by the year 2025, computer processing power will exceed the power of the human brain.
We can make computers and robots do a lot of stuff, but one thing a robot CAN’T do that a human can is find its way out of a room with one door.
(We talked about this in my ed psych class when we were talking about artificial intelligence).
We had one growing up that was owned by a guy who lived down the street from us but they closed before DVDs even became the norm once Blockbuster moved in, then Movie Gallery. MG closed, Blockbuster is still there although I haven’t been there in at least 5 years. Oddly, probably 2 years ago another locally owned movie rental place opened up right near the old one from when I grew up. I couldn’t figure out why you would suddenly get into the movie rental business now when it was already so obvious that people weren’t renting movies that way anymore. They lasted less than a year. I always do Netflix or On Demand through cable now.
What’s coming next is that the FCC has approved for movie distributors to stream brand new theatrical release movies through secure connections to your computer. So it will be possible to stream a brand new movie to your computer the day it comes out. There’s talk that it might eventually kill the movie theater. I don’t know about that. I still love going to the movies and would not be happy if that option was taken away from me. But that’s still a ways off.
I don’t think the Kindle will kill books. Apple might… but Kindle (and the nook and the like) won’t. The need for real books will always be there. At least, I think, in our lifetimes.
We can make computers and robots do a lot of stuff, but one thing a robot CAN’T do that a human can is find its way out of a room with one door.
Or my favorite: the ability to distinguish between a dog and a cat. Easy for toddlers, nearly impossible for computers.
BTW, to answer your question, the Movie Gallery in town just closed. I browsed around in there when they were selling off their inventory, but it turned out that they were overpriced to the end.
Every time I drive by it, it makes me think of the first video rental store in town, back when I was a kid. Big section of VHS tapes, smaller section of movies on Betamax. We were annoyed that the Betamax section kept shrinking, but finally gave up and bought a VHS machine.
I hope kindles don’t kill bookstores.
Do you get the sense that eventually, we will have nothing but computers running everything? We’ll develop a pill with a day’s nutrition in it and not need to eat aside from that; read online; work online; bank online…
I may be naive, but I have a hard time believing that books will ever really go away. There is something about having a fresh book in your hand and physically turning the pages that is so gratifying. Knowing you are only a few pages until you reach the end…
I hope books never die.
We never had a Blockbuster - too rural 
For some reason I can’t picture flopping on the beach and whipping out the Ipad. A good paperback seems more fitting.
Yeah, I don’t think books will ever die. With music and movies, you need something electronic to either view or listen to them, but a book works without electricity. Even if you drop a paperback in the pool it just needs a few hours to dry out and you’re good to go again. A book never runs out of batteries.
Books may never die, but bookstores may go the way of the dodo.
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Hm, hard to imagine. Bookstores are good not just for buying books but now because of their little cafes.
Our local bookstore - Mr. Paperback - is a small Maine chain; they used to have Paperbucks for gift “cards” - literally their own paper currency. I was sad when they switched to the standard plastic gift card.
“When a computer kills itself because it thinks it’s too fat, or loses it’s sh*t with a meter maid, THEN I’ll believe in artificial intelligence” - Dead Like Me
I gave up movie rental stores long ago with Netflix. They have instant streaming now, why bother with a video store?! As for books…well, you’ll never find me in a bookstore, but you can pry my library card out of my cold dead hands.