Blockbuster is a fine company with a perfectly sound business model. Problem is, the whole brick-and-mortar thing smells a little 20th centuryish.
While Netflix has cornered the mail DVD business, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes is baffled by his competitor's success.
"I've been frankly confused by this fascination that everybody has with Netflix," Keyes told Rafat Ali, in an interview with PaidContent.org.
It doesn't seem particularly confusing to us. Netflix a) is cost effective for consumers; b) has a decent movie selection; c) is (mostly) reliable; and d) is convenient -- you don't have to drag yourself to a skanky store only to find the movie you want is out.
Equally bewildering to Mr. Keyes is the emphasis on catalog size. Why would anyone want to watch anything other than new releases, he wonders.
"I don't care how many movies are available to me. As my personal taste as a customer, I want to watch the new stuff so whether we have 10,000 movies or 200 movies doesn't matter if I don't want to see any of the movies that we have . . . our assortment is heavily weighted toward newer releases and mainstream staple titles."
Clearly the guy's not a cinephile.
Photo: Flickr/billaday
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