I’ve canceled my Blockbuster online membership. It was a good run: over a year. I probably spent over $250 last year, renting all the movies I could handle. But, they changed the price on me, twice. I was upset with that. And now, I can’t live with the reduced service.
That’s life, I guess. One of my friends was telling me the other night, “Life either moves forward, or it dies. There’s no going back.” He wasn’t referring to my Blockbuster membership, but he does have a great point. I’m no longer happy spending less money for fewer DVDs. I want everything I had before, but I can’t afford the ridiculous price.
Last time I was at Blockbuster I struck up a small conversation about the whole experience. Apparently, it was the former CEO’s idea, to offer free, unlimited in-store exchanges for delivered movies. But what happened was that the online service became too popular, and no one was spending any money in the stores. Certain stores had to close down. People lost their jobs. I’m surprised the online division didn’t subsidize these stores. They had to keep records of all the movies they were giving out for free.
But alas, this poor CEO lost his job, and the new guy started raising the price of the online membership to reduce the number of people who didn’t spend money at the store, like me. Well he did his job… except, really, which is worse? Failing brick and mortar stores, or a failing online business? I’m certainly not sticking with the Blockbuster Online membership. I wonder how many other subscribers, like me, have switched back to Netflix, or something similar.
One Comment
Yea, we started out using blockbuster. It, was nice being able to walk into the store and get another movie. Then 2 days later get another movie. I, to have also switched to Netflix. Since the price went up. One main thing I love about Netflix, is the online thing were you can watch movies.