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Netflix / Blockbuster

Tony C.
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A good, succinct summary from Jason Kottke.

Netflix was founded in 1997 as a DVD rental service. At the time, Blockbuster Video was a multi-billion dollar video rental behemoth, growing to over 9000 stores as recently as 2004. In 2000, Netflix offered to sell to Blockbuster for $50 million — Blockbuster declined. By 2011, Blockbuster was bankrupt and down to 2400 stores while Netflix had gone public and their streaming business was exploding. Today, Netflix has a market cap of $223 billion, is a member of the S&P 100, and will soon start showing The Last Blockbuster, a documentary about the very last Blockbuster video rental store in the world. Absolutely savage victory lap.

https://kottke.org/21/03/netflix-to-air-documentary-about-the-last-blockbuster-video-store
 
Alex_TA
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I hope Netflix will go broke with their current repertoire.
 
marco
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Alex_TA Alex_TA
I hope Netflix will go broke with their current repertoire.
Get a high end android tv box.
 
JwRosenthal
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Netflix has seen massive competition in the last 5 years where there was none before. Also, the way people digest online content is changing rapidly. Most kids aren’t binging feature length films or shows- they watch short amateur made clips or “reaction” v-blogs to other online content. It’s hard to know which way to pivot- the target is moving so rapidly right now.
 
imfagent449
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I expect that it is difficult for a large ship to change course. I wonder if Blockbuster thought they might try and do that internally instead of buying a company.
 
kkt
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Blockbuster lost a lot of customers by renting censored versions of movies with no indication that they were not the original version. If they don't like strong R or X films, fine, just label what you're renting.
 
cvalue13
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kkt kkt
Blockbuster lost a lot of customers by renting censored versions of movies with no indication that they were not the original version. If they don't like strong R or X films, fine, just label what you're renting.

But the baby Jesus...
 
Rado63
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It's a good subject. Reminds me of the film industry when digital cameras were staking a foot hold in the market place. most film companies Really missed the boat.
 
imfagent449
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Rado63 Rado63
It's a good subject. Reminds me of the film industry when digital cameras were staking a foot hold in the market place. most film companies Really missed the boat.

I wonder about this a lot. The digital camera is a good example. From the outside, it seems clear that there are changes coming. However, I wonder if large businesses underestimate the time horizon on which changes will happen. Or perhaps they think it might be possible to develop the technology internally. I remember those early digital cameras and even hearing about early Netflix. I guess it may have been easy to underestimate their potential.

Now that I think about, I think that things can take off very very quickly in an unexpected way. I remember PayPal seemed like it was everywhere overnight.
 
Foo2rama
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Blockbuster missed the writing on the wall. They also most likely thought Apple or MS would take control of the streaming market. Turns out Apple and Blockbuster massively dropped the ball when they both held massive head starts to the online streaming arena.
 
cvalue13
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Forgetting Blockbuster, I miss the local video stores by and for cine-nerds.

10 years ago I was in mine late one night, only myself and one other customer browsing the new releases. Other guy says “excuse me” to reach by, and it’s Tarantino.

Not that I’m a ceni-nerd, but with such video stores I found myself watching a lot broader range of movies if limited to a universe curated by folks like Tarantino (who famously got his start in such a video store).

Blockbuster killed those, and got what it deserved.

Now I’m just a slave to Rotten Tomatoes...
 
sgrenald
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imfagent449 imfagent449
I wonder about this a lot. The digital camera is a good example. From the outside, it seems clear that there are changes coming. However, I wonder if large businesses underestimate the time horizon on which changes will happen. Or perhaps they think it might be possible to develop the technology internally. I remember those early digital cameras and even hearing about early Netflix. I guess it may have been easy to underestimate their potential.

Now that I think about, I think that things can take off very very quickly in an unexpected way. I remember PayPal seemed like it was everywhere overnight.

Fuji and Kodak were the two giants in the film manufacturing industry. Ironically, Kodak basically invented the digital camera and owned a lot of key patents. But they saw it as a threat to their highly lucrative film business, so they sidelined it. In the short term, they were correct. I think Kodak's best year ever was 1999. And they were making digital cameras then, too. Fuji has successfully transitioned to the new world, although their camera division is only a small part of the overall business.
 
Foo2rama
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So I was wrong...

I just watched the documentary on Netflix about the last Blockbuster.

Turns out after paramount purchased them, they saddled a lot of debt secured against future earnings on Blockbuster. When it sold to Viacom it kept those debts. When the Stoxk market crashed in 2008 no one existed to help service those debts. Blockbuster had a better streaming service at the time and was closing in on videos by mail.

interesting documentary.
 
Walrus
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I think of a few other companies. Why isn’t Sears Amazon? Why isn’t AOL the Google of the day. Nokia, blackberry? Why is that what was a near bankrupt company now the king of the cell phones and more. MySpace? These probably aren’t all the best examples but it seems like a number of companies missed it by a hairs length, or a couple trillion dollars depending on how you want to look at it.
 
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