Re:Blockbuster: Losing the plot
by defen on Monday November 03, 2014 @02:39PM
(#8552947)
Did you read the article? It claims that Blockbuster had Netflix on the ropes with their "Blockbuster Total Access" thing, which was basically Netflix but better due to the physical stores and 10x more customers. Then they decided not to pay the CEO what he was due, he quit, the whole leadership team left, they brought in a new CEO who was terrible, and they abandoned the Total Access plan and were bankrupt within 2 years.
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Actually I didn't see the next segment button, so thanks for letting me know.
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.
Re:Blockbuster: Losing the plot
by lurkinggrue on Monday November 03, 2014 @07:41PM
(#8554545)
When Total Access came out I remember Blockbuster still had a death stench on it.