Imminent demise of Blockbuster? (Amazon launches DVD rentals)

gorice · Dec 9, 2004

Amazon's new DVD rental scheme in the UK Wow. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif -- This may be old news in the US, I suppose? 8 quid per month gets you 4 DVDs, 10 quid gets you 6. The prices are more than competitive with Blockbuster, and Amazon must have just about every movie you ever wanted to watch. For me, the choice is: A) Drive 3 miles down the road (our local Blockbuster closed), pace up and down the shelves trying to find something worth watching that's actually in stock, stand in the queue for 10mins, pay Â£2.50 for the privilege and then have to drive 3 miles back to drop it off a day or two later. or B) Decide which movie we want to watch on Saturday night, fire up the web browser and wait for it to come in the post. Then send it back whenever you're done with it. Option B seems like a no-brainer to me.

yarness · Dec 9, 2004

netflix, blockbuster, and a couple other companies in the US been doing this for a while now. neat, huh?

njsweets · Dec 9, 2004

Option B may seem like a no brainer to you, but there are a lot of people who don't plan that far ahead. I, personally, don't plan to rent movies in advance. Usually it's something that just happens. All of a sudden I'll say "Hey, let's rent a movie tonight!" I would HATE to not be able to do that. I don't think mail order DVD Rentals will bring down the local establishments such as Blockbuster.

Doomlord_uk · Dec 9, 2004

yayyy woohooooo whoooopeeee this will work for me death to lazy scummeee blockbuster woooooooo -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- no brainer? even potheads'n'stoners could figure this one out! -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/6/ws/images/judge.gif --

sweetpepper · Dec 9, 2004

i'm with njsweets. although.. you can have a stack of several movies at once from the online rental places, so you can still sort of randomly decide you want to watch something. but you can't decide you want to randomly watch say "Top Gun" unless you had the forethought to put it on your list several weeks ago. it might make neighbourhood rental places slightly less common, though. i dunno! your nearest rental place is 3 miles away? i'm sure i have 3 within a mile radius.

UruseiY · Dec 9, 2004

At a quick glance it looks like tescos is a better offer. ive got a few friends who use it and they're pretty impressed. Most noticable difference is: amazon = 6 dvds/mo, 3 at a time tesco = unlimited dvds/mo, 3 at a time

MrJackson2000 · Dec 9, 2004

Blockbuster Online gives you 2 free instore rentals a month, so if i want something that night i can get it

Twelve · Dec 9, 2004

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote">quote:<HR>Originally posted by sweetpepper: your nearest rental place is 3 miles away? i'm sure i have 3 within a mile radius. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> And here I was thinking, "That place isn't local anymore because it's 3 miles?" I have to drive 40 miles for the nearest blockbuster. And they've run the place that used to be closer out of business. This is why I buy DVDs.

yarness · Dec 9, 2004

heh, there's so many movies i want to watch that i haven't even seen yet, i don't have the problem of suddenly wanting to watch a movie right now. i've got 3 movies every weekend that i haven't seen yet. we've had the netflix account for three weeks and our queue is already up to 40 movies. at home right now we've got cowboy bebop volume 2, amelie, and i forget what's on the way in the mail.

Doomlord_uk · Dec 9, 2004

Our local Blockbuster has gone downhill noticeably over the last coupla years - they've moved bigtime in to game sales/rentals, the place is very badly run/organised and they seem to have a very random catalogue of older films. We used to have an EXCELLENT local video shop but that closed sadly after the lease ended. The lady who ran that maintained an excellent section of foreign films and a superb catalogue of older films - and she knew her stuff, she was a really knowledgable person, unlike the moomins who work at BlockBuster. I'm not a 'casual' film renter - there are always films I know I want to watch, I even buy them in advance so I always have a choice. But having DVDs delivered to your door for a fraction of the price you'd pay to go and find them at BBs is a winner. Browsing online is just as good as browsing shelves. Without the driving.

blath · Dec 9, 2004

gorice - I'd go after Option A, who knows who you might meet while going out. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- Me, though I have DSL I can only check my physical mail once a week and physically send out mail 2 or 3 times a week. Outside those restrictions special preparations have to be made. I do however have a Blockbuster about half a mile from my position, except for this one section of road it is very easy to walk too. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- However I'm po so thats out of the question but it's nice to have that option available when I'm capable. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/ws/,s,50009562/images/biggrin_old.gif --

gorice · Dec 9, 2004

What doomlord_uk said. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- Both our local small video shops closed down, Blockbuster closed their local store as well, but no great loss, since their range of older films was scattershot at best. Also much of the older stuff was on VHS, and I'm a bit spoiled now that I've tasted the honey of DVD. I think as far as casual browsing goes, yeah - it's nice to wander along a shelf and pick up things that catch your eye. But Amazon's "if you like this, you might also like" cross-linking is an incredibly powerful tool for expanding your horizons, whether it's movies, books or music. But even though I quite like casual browsing, I keep a list of films to rent on my PDA that just keeps getting longer and longer...... The Tescos DVD rental scheme looks excellent, too - thanks, UruseiY.

Mark Laarson · Dec 9, 2004

Here i was thinking i'd have another free trial to use -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif --

ANSDAC · Dec 9, 2004

A quid is a pound, right?

Magnus Rex · Dec 9, 2004

<blockquote class="ip-ubbcode-quote">
quote:<hr>Originally posted by sweetpepper: i'm with njsweets. although.. you can have a stack of several movies at once from the online rental places, so you can still sort of randomly decide you want to watch something. but you can't decide you want to randomly watch say "Top Gun" unless you had the forethought to put it on your list several weeks ago. <hr>
</blockquote>
 Uh...let's say I decide I want to see Top Gun, I click on "Add" button on Netflix's website, click the "Move to Top of Queue", and it's sitting in my mailbox 1-2 days later. Awesome. Granted, it's not the instant gratification of going to the vid store, but it's also not required to have had it in your queue for "several weeks" either. One nice thing is I live very close to one of their distribution centers, so I have only a 2 day turnaround -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif --

ffifield · Dec 9, 2004

They still have stores that you have to walk in to in order to rent videos? That's so 20th century.

Imminent demise of Blockbuster? (Amazon launches DVD rentals)

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