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Comment by AdmiralAsshat | Hacker News Reader

There is certainly the case to be made that physical DVD/Blu-Ray rental is still a viable business due to the stagnation of internet improvement in the US.

With that said, I'd think that Redbox basically does Netflix-by-mail more efficiently, no? It seems like the speed of the mail service guarantees that it will take at least a few days between you sending your finished movies back before new ones arrive, as opposed to driving to your nearest grocery store or gas station to pick something else.

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History has shown that this isn't the case... otherwise people would've kept Blockbuster in business in the face of Netflix DVD rentals. People value the convenience, it's only recently that people wax nostalgic over the whole "going to the video store to rent on a Friday night". They generally forget the long lines, employees who were rude and didn't care because it was a minimum wage job, often messy as hell store where the availability was mixed... the list goes on.

Blockbuster wasn't good at video rental. They were the big, inefficient bully, and the last choice of anyone with any sense.

The selection was tiny compared to the independents they mostly priced out of existence, then became the most expensive place to rent once that was done. They had major films sooner for about as much as going to the cinema. That's it. Their only selling point. They got shot of old stuff far too soon so you could never actually find old stuff in Blockbuster unless it was 2001 or Wizard of Oz.

The corner shop near us that rented, and next door but 2 to Blockbuster, kept going years after Blockbuster closed. Having experienced Blockbuster in 3 or 4 places I've lived, I gave a little cheer when they went.

There's still a thriving video chain in the area where I live: Family Video. Family Video focused on owning their real estate instead of renting.

I can get a BluRay from Family Video and a pizza from Marcos delivered to my door in under an hour with a $10 or more purchase from Marcos. It ends up being a cheap date night with my fiancee.

Does the Marcos deliver the video too? I know some Family Videos have Marcos attached to them.

I rented a lot of movies from Family Video in high school. There was a location about halfway between my house and my girlfriends. It closed at Midnight, and my curfew was midnight, so I stopped by right before closing almost every night one summer. They had a deal where you got an old release for free with every new release and it was like 3 dollars.

That was a fun summer.

Yes, Marcos delivers the video with the pizza. It's a five day rental, though I've returned it after seven days with no late fees.

I worked there as a kid, and trust me, I agree for the most part.

My comment just worked better with Blockbuster since Blockbuster is/was the poster child of that era of video rental. :)

People value the convenience, it's only recently that people wax nostalgic over the whole "going to the video store to rent on a Friday night".

First, we got the convenience. Only when most everything went online and the alternatives had faded to irrelevance did the availability start to go away. Now we consumers have less than we did before.

DVDs drive library engagement.

Netflix is a Trojan horse. The whole business model is moving to in-house stuff, and each of the big content owners will stand up their own platforms.

...and then we have basically come full circle to cable v2.0.

I am curious about how streaming will develop over the next few years as more services come online. I doubt the average person is going to want to maintain that many (expensive) subscription services. I already dislike the juggle between Netflix, Prime, and Hulu.

This is what the new Apple TV channels thing is trying to solve for while also contributing to the problem :-)

I'm at capacity with content platforms... I've dropped CBS, and once DC Universe expires, I'm out there too. It's worse that they're both the same damned company. Hulu and Amazon are all I'm keeping for now. May return to Netflix if anything really interesting to me hits. Or have it a couple months, binge watch and cancel again.

I used to rent a ton of movies, and never once ran in to a rude employee.

Long lines were annoying, but the worst was having to drive to and from the store. The independent video stores in my area were much further away than the nearest Blockbuster, so Blockbuster was more convenient but their crappy video selection made going to the independents instead worth it for me, and Blockbuster was the store of last resort.

Once I started using Netflix's DVD service, I never set foot a brick and mortar video rental store again. Why would I drive somewhere when I had an excellent DVD selection at my fingertips that would mail the DVD to me?

>I used to rent a ton of movies, and never once ran in to a rude employee.

My guy, the rest of your comment is great. You've gotta realize how wildly useless this line is, though.

Bad service exists and video store employees were known for being in this stereotype, as were theater employees. You just got lucky.

Are you sure it isn’t the other way around? Wasn’t video store clerk a sought after job among young people with little work experience, because it was related to something that’s fun? Wouldn’t the staff usually be at least somewhat helpful because they’re passionate about movies?

This misconception that people who worked at those stores were all movie buffs is very much nostalgia poking through.

Context: I was one of those employees, and I worked in multiple regions of the USA and have conferred with friends who worked at Blockbuster UK as well.

Anecdotally, every video chain store I have ever visited, from Blockbuster to Video Ezy, Civic Video, Channel X, United Video (here in New Zealand) has had at least one movie buff employee.

I've also never experienced a long line at a video store, despite it being a regular Friday night thing for me to do for many years...

Gotta say, the thing I miss most is the ease of browsing through a curated back catalogue. Netflix and co are terribly awful by comparison. Several hundred square metres vs a 55" television screen...

Netflix's DVD catalog is very, very deep. There are likely 6 digits of titles. A Redbox machine probably has under 1000 DVDs in it, so your selection is about 100x-1000x better with Netflix.

Netflix might have a deep catalog of movies they once rented but they don't seem to be refreshing their catalog when a DVD goes missing. I suspect they are winding down their DVD service.

We gave up on Netflix DVD when about half of our saved for later queue flipped over to queue of DVDs they no longer have.

It used to be that Netflix competed with Blockbuster by carrying movies Blockbuster did not rent. Netflix was originally the movie service for movie lovers and Blockbuster was the service for new releases. This was before Netflix also started carrying new releases. Now if I want to see a movie that was made more than 5 years ago, it is no longer available.

I don't doubt you, but it's frustrating to have a "Saved For Later" queue of 50 or so titles that will likely never appear on Netflix.

Walking Tall? Giant? Gaslight? Beach Blanket Bingo anyone? Return of the Dragon? Ran?

4 out of 6 of those movies are available for free on a popular streaming site.

I've read that Netflix is simply not interested in offering movies, preferring tv series. When I subscribed (in Europe) the selection was very limited.

I think you're right. I feel like Netflix would love to 86 their disc business.

I am very confused trying to check on these movies. They show up in search results. I click on them. They redirect me to dvd.netflix.com and suggest that I get a subscription. I don't want to sign up. I want to know if your service offers them or not. Nonetheless, maybe they'll help you?

https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Walking-Tall/60034554

https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Gaslight/70074384

https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Beach-Blanket-Bingo-How-to-Stu...

https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Return-of-the-Dragon/60020726

https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Ran/60027429

Thank you. The first two links are to different versions of the films I had in my queue (c'mon, no one needs a remake of "Walking Tall"). The last three indeed go to the titles that are in my "Saved" queue (which means they are not available to rent but are in their database nonetheless).

I went ahead and added the different version of Gaslight to my queue though. Thanks, stranger.

Do you not pay the extra money for Blu-ray? Giant and Ran are both listed but it says Blu-ray only.

I have chosen to rent both Blu-ray or DVD and in the case of both the titles (Ran and Giant) they still show "Saved" — meaning "not available but maybe someday".

Oh well, I guess I can check the local library.

Redbox is good if you want one of the top 100 or so new releases that fit in the box, but a big point of the OP is that Netflix has 100K+ titles, obviously Redbox can't match that.

> a big point of the OP is that Netflix has 100K+ titles, obviously Redbox can't match that.

It would be tough to get studio buy-in, but it would be amazing to have a version or Redbox that burned DVDs in place.

From a logistics perspective it would be ideal if they could use disks that degraded after 5 plays, but they could also just accept disks back, read them, and destroy them.

What's the selection of Redbox DVD's at grocery stores like? I have a hard time believing it's anywhere close to Netflix's extensive DVD selection.

Also, Netflix has various plans: you could rent one DVD at a time, two DVDs at a time, three DVDs at a time (and maybe more). If you have three DVDs out at a time, and watch one DVD per day and mail it DVDs back as you watch them, you won't have to wait long before your next DVD arrives in the mail, possibly while you're still watching the rest.

In my own experience, watching a DVD per day is pretty ambitious. Odds are you'll be watching way less than that, and there'll be multiple days between watching DVDs, in which case waiting for your next DVD to arrive in the mail won't realy make any difference.

Yeah, no, Redbox selection is slim. Unless you're into direct-to-inflight slasher films. In that case Redbox is dabomb.

;-)

Netflix has done some work with their algos such that if you always watch your movie on the weekend and send it back Monday, they'll just start shipping your next movie out on Monday morning on the assumption that they old one will be back Tuesday.

They also have a deal with the post office that in some areas the post office will notify Netflix when they pick up your disk so that Netflix can send a new out before they get your old one back.

If your situation is seriously rural, it might be a few days between trips into town (or to your P.O. box), so while you could get different media at Redbox on every trip, you would have to plan to overlap returns and requests on Netflix (perhaps with multiple accounts?) to get new content on every trip.

I am extrapolating from seeing a number of battered rancher pickup trucks whose occupants are clustered around Redbox kiosks in small towns in the western US.

What does Redbox have that Netflix/AmazonPrime/Hulu doesn't? Redbox's selection is limited per their model.

New movies cheaper than iTunes.

immediacy

for some it is purely impulse renting. do not confuse the immediacy of the experience with the ability to find something to stream, it is a whole different experience

The latency for Netflix is longer but it means there's a DVD right there with zero effort that you can watch more or less whenever you get around to it. Even if the nearest Redbox is just 5 or 10 minutes away, that's one or two possibly unique trips you have to make. That's actually a fairly big barrier for me unless there's a new release I really want to see tonight.

>With that said, I'd think that Redbox basically does Netflix-by-mail more efficiently, no?

No, actually, because the killer aspect of DVD-by-mail is the depth of selection. Redbox machines are even MORE limited.

If you like / want what is in the Redbox, sure.

Not much there at any given time though.

Redbox selection is a vanishly small fraction of what's available from netflix DVDs/Bluray.

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