Idk what ur talking about, blockbuster was peak for me back in the day. Every weekend my fam would go there to rent a movie and if I was lucky a game lol
Something kind of related to that to remember is that VHS tapes used to be really expensive when they first came out. That was true of a lot of video formats. So, the model started out that you'd buy the player and rent the media. When movies got cheaper in the late 80s and 90s, people started buying more movies. That meant less revenue for Blockbuster and drove prices up. Funnily enough, Top Gun was a trendsetter here. The Pepsi partnership they did meant they could sell the VHS cheaper. This was part of a larger trend toward product placement in movies. This is also why game rentals were pushed so heavily even into the early days of Redbox. They were always more expensive, so renting them (especially new releases) still made sense. The media model swung toward ownership and then went to digital which is just renting at this point. It's come full circle.
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u/dentimBandB 13h ago
The entire system of renting and subscription based services has become predatory and needs to be regulated into oblivion.