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A comment on Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive. Parent comment

Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by ghaff on Monday July 11, 2022 @12:40PM (#32058462)
Mostly rose-colored glasses nostalgia probably. Being able to rent a movie whenever[0] you wanted to and watch it at home was extremely transformative in a way that someone who grew up with streaming (not you I realize) would find difficult to appreciate. A lot of movies weren't even purchasable as a practical matter (priced to rent) at the time.

[0] Well, if they had it and it was in stock.

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Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by bombcar on Monday July 11, 2022 @01:31PM (#32059069)
They'd even rent VCRs and DVD players, which was a big deal early on when they were multiple hundreds of dollars.
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Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by amyjess on Monday July 11, 2022 @05:44PM (#32062344)
They'd rent video game consoles too.

Speaking of which, I miss video game rentals. I spent so much time as akid at Blockbuster looking for games to rent. Even now, I'd like to be able to play with a game for a few days before committing to paying for the whole game.

(and of course, I say this with a hundred unplayed games in my Steam library...)

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Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by bombcar on Monday July 11, 2022 @07:34PM (#32063589)
https://www.gamefly.com exists but I feel it's days are numbered, what with console makers doing everything they can to tie games to accounts tied to a given console ...
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Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by TedDoesntTalk on Monday July 11, 2022 @06:07PM (#32062650)
Before video rental stores, we rented a film projector at the public library and movies on reel-to-reel film. Small selection of old stuff like Marx Brothers, Three Stooges, etc.
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