Once upon a time it ruled the DVD-rental roost. Now Blockbuster's
shutting all of its doors. Get nostalgic and tell us what you won't miss
about the chain.
The once mighty and ubiquitous neon light of Blockbuster will soon go
dark. The chain -- owned by Dish for the past couple of years -- will shut down all its remaining stores and discontinue its DVDs-by-mail service over the next few months.
Blockbuster was once a titan of home entertainment, coming to
dominate the DVD rental world in the late 1990s and early 2000s before
broadband and names like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu started to chip away
at the convenience of a neighborhood store with the trademark blue
awning.
The company went from being on top of the world to a dinosaur of the
entertainment world so quickly my brain has a hard time placing it in
the timeline of my life.
It was scarcely 15 years ago that my weekends were dominated by
Blockbuster. Friday nights would kick off with a visit to the store, the
agony of making those selections, and then waiting two more hours to
actually watch the movie with friends only after they finished their
shifts working at Blockbuster. Could such a treasured American ritual as
this already have grown so completely extinct? Petrified, even?
Answer: Yes, of course. Nostalgia aside, the digital world is more
awesome now than it was 10 minutes ago, and I can now fit all the movies
I'd care to watch from a single Blockbuster store into a device I can
carry around in my pocket. So, thanks for the good times Blockbuster,
but next time try a little harder to keep up, maybe?
Take our poll and let us know what you'll miss least about Blockbuster.
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