We all remember Blockbuster Video stores right? I mean it wasn't all that long ago you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a brick and mortar store. Well, the days of renting over priced DVD's and paying incredibly ridiculous late fees are a thing of the past....and you can thank your local library for putting the final nail in Blockbuster's coffin.

No really, I'm not joking. You see kids, Blockbuster Video was a huge juggernaut in family home entertainment made popular in the 80's and steam rolling right into the 90's and early 2000's. It didn't seem like anything would derail that train. And Blockbuster knew they had a good thing and why mess with a good thing right? Well, that's not always the case.

As 2000 rolled around, Blockbuster had over 7,700 stores world wide. Netflix was nothing more than a concept. A concept that Blockbuster actually had the chance to acquire (buy out) before it even took off. A chance Blockbuster passed on because they felt customer loyalty outweighed convenience. Silly corporation. As Netflix gained steam, Blockbuster began to feel the pinch of the competition. So, Blockbuster launched their own at-home, on demand service but it was too little too late. Also, they only offered the service on certain specific Motorola and TiVo devices. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Then came Redbox. Those little red kiosks began popping up and operating with very little overhead. I mean the only person Redbox has to pay is the guy who fills the machines with movies. There's no store maintenance, health insurance, etc. The pinch grew tighter and tighter on Blockbuster who started it's own mail-in movie service similar to Netflix. It never really took off fully.

Then came the "brilliant" ideas Blockbuster put in play to try and save business. Ideas such as phasing out classic and indie movies available and only focus on new releases. Something the public wasn't too fond of considering Netflix offered basically any movie you wanted to watch via it's mail-in service. Blockbuster went out of it's way to not learn from Netflix's success. Instead it tried to fix things on it's own. Like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

At this point Blockbuster was hemorrhaging money. It could no longer afford to replace lost/stolen/damaged DVD's on it's shelves considering any bit of profit went into trying to retain what little customer base it had left and more importantly...paying off it's debts. Blockbuster began shuttering stores right and left. But there was still a glimmer of hope with it's All Access mail in and streaming service. Enter the public library....

At this point it's around 2010 and Blockbuster is on the verge of bankruptcy. Netflix was hugely popular, Redbox was gaining steam and not slowing down and Blockbuster did all they could to bring in a dozen customers a day at some of it's bigger city stores. It was on life support. However, there was one entity that nobody ever thinks of. By 2010 Blockbuster was a distant 4th place in the movie rental market. 3rd place as Redbox, 2nd place was Netflix and in first, bringing in more DVD rentals than all the other competition combined. The local libraries. With it's free membership, free DVD rentals and 25 cents per day late fees there was no competing. Blockbuster was doomed and filed chapter 11. Now, the once mighty video rental empire has roughly 50 stores remaining open. And all of them are franchisee owned and safe from bankruptcy. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

So remember that next time you doubt if the local library is useful and still relevant. They have a wide selection of DVD's for checkout. Everything from movies to entire seasons of TV shows and documentaries. Music CD's galore. And of course, because people still read, books! And don't forget, Victoria Public Library also checks out video games! Yeah, video games! So stop by and check out what your local library can check out to you and meet the friendly staff that helped bring down a corporate giant. Nice people.

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