But Total Access isn't the 800 lbs Gorilla that the author believes it to be. I actually subscribed to total access. It is certainly a cool feature, but I'm not sure it was very profitable. For essentially the same price as netflix, I could also get 2-3 instore rentals a month. All for what blockbuster used to charge for 3-4 rentals total.
But blockbuster could have survived Netflix. What it couldn't survive was netflix, redbox, and instant streams. Netflix took away the heavy movie fans. Redbox took aware the family movie night segment. Blockbuster couldn't survive on 1-1.50 a night, but Redbox could.
The dinosaurs more often than not try to protect their declining fortunes rather than cannibalise their sales, but often they could be doing both and doing it more effectively.
In this case there was a bit more going on, obviously.
A massive nationwide retail chain can't just pivot like a startup can. Blockbuster's retail footprint was massive. It had 9,000 stores. Worse, it had franchise stores which it owed a duty to.
Even if Blockbuster could have had a profitable online rental business, it would have been brought down by the retail failure. It would have gone bankrupt anyway.