The issue is as with any other monopoly. Initially, something seems nice and convenient, like Netflix and Amazon. But then you realize that you've sold your soul to a giant multinational that will then push pedophilia and censor dissidents at will. By then, it is too late, because you withdrawing your patronage is not going to stop either, and all competitors are already out of business, with no chances of any resurrection.
Generally, your 'leave well enough alone' seems like a good strategy. The problem with the opposite has been proven from the French Revolution to the Khmer Rouge, but we're nothing if not stubborn learners.
The main issue we had with rental stores back in the day was the late fees. You'd return something on time and it'd sit in the return bin for hours until an employee scanned it as returned. If they happened to scan your movie in at 12:01 am the next day, it was "late".
It got so back that my parents used to physically hand an employee the movie and ask them to sign the receipt with a date and time when it was returned. And IIRC part of the story behind netflix was after the founder complained about late fee policies some blockbuster manager told him "if you don't like it build your own blockbuster store", so he did.
Other issue was if you wanted to watch something that wasn't a new release. The rental stores usually had full shelves of the movies that had just come out, but if you wanted to watch something a few years old it got tricky. That was where netflix really shined: they had a massive variety of stuff way beyond what any movie rental store had. Local stores sometimes had a better collection of old movies than blockbuster stores since they didn't cycle through inventory nearly as much, and when DVDs came out that helped some because they took up less room on the shelves.
Well speaking of shelf space now, it's no longer needed!
Imagine walking into a brick and mortar, buying membership and being given a USB stick, small size, fits one film, maybe up to three and paying stick rental instead. Plug in to a computer, pay for films, download, watch, film deletes itself after a full viewing.
I'm sure a small proprietary bit of code could do that. Even more draw to it, if the player software is stored on the stick. Just plug it into a TV.
Edit: should mention, this is how rental stores should have behaved when netfkix/redbox peaked their noses out. Sure the back end would be a bit more intricate (server racks stored on site with films), but the far larger library they could hold and move to digital would have seen them compete longer atleast until digital bandwidth got larger for home downloads and then streaming as we have now. They could have been doing streaming long before netflix was dreaming of it
There were several attempts to do something similar to that over the years. There was a competing format to DVD very early on called DIVX (not to be confused with the video codec) that had the ability to restrict viewing to a certain number of times or a certain period of time. There was also some research into making DVDs with a coating over the reflective layer which would start to oxidize after being exposed to air so they wouldn't play after 72 hours or so. Neither amounted to anything.
I suspect the reason they didn't do something like what you suggest was more due to licensing than anything. "Digital distribution" of movies has different licensing terms than DVDs and VHS tapes. Any any attempt to do something like that would have been sued into oblivion.
Oh I am fully aware of the licensing issues, but we have those licensing issues resolved now for streaming, so all it took was a bit of negotiation work, likely not too dissimilar to what netflix did initially.
I occasionally wondered about the complete opposite, a streaming service that needs no licensing. There are special laws regarding lending physical media. My idea basically a giant Redbox but in a warehouse somewhere. You pay $.50 to rent a blu-ray player in the warehouse, which is legal. You pay $1.50 to rent a blu-ray, also legal. A robot arm places your rented blu-ray in your rented player which you control remotely.
There was a OTA TV company that tried this model called Aereo. Instead of cable retransmission fees or putting up your own antenna, you'd pay a monthly fee to rent an actual antenna and TV tuner in their array of antenna and tuners and stream it to you. They actually built an array of little microantennas so you were renting your own physical antenna and not sharing. It was super smart I thought, but they got sued by the media giants and lost.
Everybody wasn't on the internet and using smartphones back then to whine about shit on any social media sites and whatnot with other retards so that made it harder for these retards to get heard and cancel shit
Nah I hated Blockbuster except for a while before their death they did an unlimited movie pass for a monthly fee and I had one within walking distance so it was pretty badass then.
I loved Netflix because they had the shows I wanted when I wanted them. Going to blockbuster was always a guessing game of what might be there, and what I might enjoy.
On the other hand, if I liked this movie, a bunch of movies next to it looked cool.
All that said, we still have movie rental stores, they just shrank and became Red Box or whatever.
The only time I ever appreciated services like netflix was when I was in an unfamiliar place and didn't know where to find the rental store.
I was getting old vhs rentals for a quarter each in early 2000s. Some of those movies I couldn't even find on torrents, and have yet to see pop up in a major streaming service. Sometimes I would travel to nearby small towns just to check their rental stores because I loved finding a movie I hadn't already seen.
When redbox popped up, I thought it was a joke. Quadruple price plus shorter rental duration? Who'd take that? The people that only watch the hottest new blockbuster of the year, apparently. Then everyone gave up without even trying to change their business model, fucking losers.
But what now? Even if someone realized that it was a mistake at this point, where are they gonna get copies of those movies that never even got torrent copies? I got lucky and found a bunch for sale at a bloody porn store of all places, but I've nowhere near enough to start a rental store.
Yeah, is still occasionally go to Cinefile Video just to get a bit of that old-time feel. You definitely find different things that way. Or I go to a used DVD store so I don’t have to return it.
The issue is as with any other monopoly. Initially, something seems nice and convenient, like Netflix and Amazon. But then you realize that you've sold your soul to a giant multinational that will then push pedophilia and censor dissidents at will. By then, it is too late, because you withdrawing your patronage is not going to stop either, and all competitors are already out of business, with no chances of any resurrection.
Generally, your 'leave well enough alone' seems like a good strategy. The problem with the opposite has been proven from the French Revolution to the Khmer Rouge, but we're nothing if not stubborn learners.
The main issue we had with rental stores back in the day was the late fees. You'd return something on time and it'd sit in the return bin for hours until an employee scanned it as returned. If they happened to scan your movie in at 12:01 am the next day, it was "late".
It got so back that my parents used to physically hand an employee the movie and ask them to sign the receipt with a date and time when it was returned. And IIRC part of the story behind netflix was after the founder complained about late fee policies some blockbuster manager told him "if you don't like it build your own blockbuster store", so he did.
Other issue was if you wanted to watch something that wasn't a new release. The rental stores usually had full shelves of the movies that had just come out, but if you wanted to watch something a few years old it got tricky. That was where netflix really shined: they had a massive variety of stuff way beyond what any movie rental store had. Local stores sometimes had a better collection of old movies than blockbuster stores since they didn't cycle through inventory nearly as much, and when DVDs came out that helped some because they took up less room on the shelves.
Well speaking of shelf space now, it's no longer needed!
Imagine walking into a brick and mortar, buying membership and being given a USB stick, small size, fits one film, maybe up to three and paying stick rental instead. Plug in to a computer, pay for films, download, watch, film deletes itself after a full viewing.
I'm sure a small proprietary bit of code could do that. Even more draw to it, if the player software is stored on the stick. Just plug it into a TV.
Edit: should mention, this is how rental stores should have behaved when netfkix/redbox peaked their noses out. Sure the back end would be a bit more intricate (server racks stored on site with films), but the far larger library they could hold and move to digital would have seen them compete longer atleast until digital bandwidth got larger for home downloads and then streaming as we have now. They could have been doing streaming long before netflix was dreaming of it
There were several attempts to do something similar to that over the years. There was a competing format to DVD very early on called DIVX (not to be confused with the video codec) that had the ability to restrict viewing to a certain number of times or a certain period of time. There was also some research into making DVDs with a coating over the reflective layer which would start to oxidize after being exposed to air so they wouldn't play after 72 hours or so. Neither amounted to anything.
I suspect the reason they didn't do something like what you suggest was more due to licensing than anything. "Digital distribution" of movies has different licensing terms than DVDs and VHS tapes. Any any attempt to do something like that would have been sued into oblivion.
Oh I am fully aware of the licensing issues, but we have those licensing issues resolved now for streaming, so all it took was a bit of negotiation work, likely not too dissimilar to what netflix did initially.
I occasionally wondered about the complete opposite, a streaming service that needs no licensing. There are special laws regarding lending physical media. My idea basically a giant Redbox but in a warehouse somewhere. You pay $.50 to rent a blu-ray player in the warehouse, which is legal. You pay $1.50 to rent a blu-ray, also legal. A robot arm places your rented blu-ray in your rented player which you control remotely.
There was a OTA TV company that tried this model called Aereo. Instead of cable retransmission fees or putting up your own antenna, you'd pay a monthly fee to rent an actual antenna and TV tuner in their array of antenna and tuners and stream it to you. They actually built an array of little microantennas so you were renting your own physical antenna and not sharing. It was super smart I thought, but they got sued by the media giants and lost.
Everybody wasn't on the internet and using smartphones back then to whine about shit on any social media sites and whatnot with other retards so that made it harder for these retards to get heard and cancel shit
Nah I hated Blockbuster except for a while before their death they did an unlimited movie pass for a monthly fee and I had one within walking distance so it was pretty badass then.
I loved Netflix because they had the shows I wanted when I wanted them. Going to blockbuster was always a guessing game of what might be there, and what I might enjoy.
On the other hand, if I liked this movie, a bunch of movies next to it looked cool.
All that said, we still have movie rental stores, they just shrank and became Red Box or whatever.
Now they make mostly shit shows full of the usual sjw crap.
Sadly true.
They love to race or gender swamp or add in a lgbt char.
Yes, there ideas of gender is a real swamp to get through.
I liked Blockbuster.
They had video rentals, and game rentals, and you could read the back of the box without the video FUCKING AUTOPLAYING.
The only time I ever appreciated services like netflix was when I was in an unfamiliar place and didn't know where to find the rental store.
I was getting old vhs rentals for a quarter each in early 2000s. Some of those movies I couldn't even find on torrents, and have yet to see pop up in a major streaming service. Sometimes I would travel to nearby small towns just to check their rental stores because I loved finding a movie I hadn't already seen.
When redbox popped up, I thought it was a joke. Quadruple price plus shorter rental duration? Who'd take that? The people that only watch the hottest new blockbuster of the year, apparently. Then everyone gave up without even trying to change their business model, fucking losers.
But what now? Even if someone realized that it was a mistake at this point, where are they gonna get copies of those movies that never even got torrent copies? I got lucky and found a bunch for sale at a bloody porn store of all places, but I've nowhere near enough to start a rental store.
What group came into power in the 60s?
Yeah, is still occasionally go to Cinefile Video just to get a bit of that old-time feel. You definitely find different things that way. Or I go to a used DVD store so I don’t have to return it.