Inquiring Minds

[Air]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/5/30/

[MrJ2006]

Ha ha ha ha, fucking great!

[Propoxy]

That is hilarious!

But... I feel like I need to say my piece about brick and mortar stores. Not necessarily Blockbuster, because we all know that it's not the end-all be-all, but stores in general and their continued usefullness to people.

Not everyone likes to use a computer. Not everyone has cable. Not everyone is comfortable with giving out their credit card info, no matter how secure it is. There is still a section of the movie-renting population that likes to interact with actual, living people, get feedback, get assistance, and all that comes with that. People still like to browse, read the backs of boxes and be able to interact with something tangible.

Stores may not be the most popular delivery of home entertainment anymore, but they still have their place.

Sorry for that interruption.

[itirnitii]

Originally Posted by Propoxy

That is hilarious!

But... I feel like I need to say my piece about brick and mortar stores. Not necessarily Blockbuster, because we all know that it's not the end-all be-all, but stores in general and their continued usefullness to people.

Not everyone likes to use a computer. Not everyone has cable. Not everyone is comfortable with giving out their credit card info, no matter how secure it is. There is still a section of the movie-renting population that likes to interact with actual, living people, get feedback, get assistance, and all that comes with that. People still like to browse, read the backs of boxes and be able to interact with something tangible.

Stores may not be the most popular delivery of home entertainment anymore, but they still have their place.

Sorry for that interruption.

Probably is generational really, older generations mostly still like brick and mortar, younger generations are mostly technological in thinking. As years pass and high school students become college students and then become the dominant market in consumerism and the current dominant market grows old and moves to social security and inevitably, death, the trends are not in favor of brick and mortar.....

I still believe in brick ad mortar, for the time being, but not Blockbuster.

[orbitdvd]

I still have a pretty healthy college crowd. I think for my stores, it's more about the experience of physically shopping for something than what you are actually looking for. If that makes sense.

[Glass Half Empty]

The biggest college campus in my state no longer has a BBV

[deathbydanny]

I guess it makes sense, as Penny Arcade, unlike Blockbuster, actually makes money and understands it's customer...er, fan base.

[itirnitii]

Both downtown universities I went to lost their Blockbusters. But, again, Blockbuster was oversaturated and it's no surprise - which doesn't speak for all brick and mortar.

Seriously though, movies will probably have its own "itunes" format for $1.99 cents each to purchase in a couple decades. Around the time that the average person can just download a movie in the same time frame as an MP3 song download today, that will be the norm for sure. That's the only real hindrance keeping physical copies of movies from going the same way as the physical music CD - aside from maybe good portable inexpensive DVD Players, which are also advancing at an alarming rate.