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Author Topic: Blockbuster  (Read 7938 times)
Susan
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« on: December 29, 2004, 11:07:11 AM »

Blockbuster is monopolizing the home movie industry, this corporate evil wants to buy out Hollywood Video so they can have no real competition. If they don't budge they say they are going to take it to the shareholders. They also offer the online rentals at a lower price than netflix to drive customers away, they can afford to since they have other sources of income.No one company should control an entire market, they have put some of my favorite mom and pop shops out of business that often had better prices (at the time) and a more diverse movie selection.

They now offer trading - there is a local Dallas company here called the "Movie Trading Company" that is very popular with this business and it appears blockbuster is trying to push them out as well.  
They have become the new Walmart.

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Menard
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« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2004, 11:53:34 AM »

It seems much the story that a small operation starts a business and makes it successful and bigger companies come along thinking that is a good idea and buy up or put out of business the smaller companies. Of course Wal-mart and Microsoft are interesting examples of companies that have grown too big for their britches but started out small. An interesting example, from a photographer's perspective, of a corporation trying to monopolize on a fad and instead destroying it was Glamour Shots. Smaller studios did this type of photography and when it became popular a larger corporation tried to franchise this. Of course it was overkill and they hurt themselves and others. Getting back on the subject, our local video store, which has been here for years has been holding on strong, even though Hollywood Video does have a store in town. It is interesting that Blockbuster tried to make a go of it and could not compete with the local store. This town has a weird fascination with not trusting outsiders.--Bob

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BeyondTheGrave
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« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2004, 02:16:43 PM »

I agree with Susan. Ive been noticeing more blockbusters poping up knocking out some business such as west coast video. But over here in my neigborhood thier was a huge blockbuster but got knocked out by mom pop business. Take that evil corporations.

"I know I know ive been exposed permeant psychoses..
at least the colors are nice"- Aeon Flux
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AndyC
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« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2004, 02:21:40 PM »

It's funny, there are supposed to be laws to protect healthy competition, but you never see the government getting in the way of big mergers that aren't likely to be good for anyone.

I was just thinking of this recently, how so many little stores took a chance on this new video rental thing in the 70s and early 80s, made a success of it, and once it became popular enough, the corporations came in and stamped them all out. Now the big guys are eating each other.

And, as you said, every time a business comes along with a different idea, to possibly carve out a niche for itself (net rentals, trading, etc.), Blockbuster grabs it for their own. It's disgusting.

I'm all for free enterprise, but there is a point where it stops benefitting anyone but a few executives and large shareholders. Personally, I think the bigger Blockbuster gets, the worse it gets, in terms of service and selection.

Small, private businesses need to be protected.

We have two independent video stores in the area that are actually succeeding. One is the first in the city, which is also part of a large and established electronics store. They have a pretty fair selection.

The other actually focuses on genre films, foreign, cult, classic, anime, etc., and is run by people who know what they're talking about and genuinely love movies. It probably helps that this is a university town. They also put a major investment into DVDs a few years ago, including a lot of titles they already had. They had a huge DVD section when even Blockbuster was just adding a few. It's my favourite video store, and I want to support it, but they don't make it easy. Rentals are expensive, you only get them for two days, and the late fee is full rental price.



Post Edited (12-29-04 13:32)
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daveblackeye15
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« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2004, 03:56:02 PM »



Hella tight! Take that! (oh wait you already said that)

God I remember when the blockbuster down my street had movies that you would find in Mom and Pop videos, they use to have Pigs AKA Daddies Deadly Darling. PIGS for christs sakes they once had PIGS!!!!

Hollywood video is SLIGHTLY more mom and Pop but my favorite video store is this once place called Flicks and Picks, good god they still have the Gamera movies that I watched when I was a really little kid and the X from Outer Space. DIE CORPORATIONS DIE!!!!!

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nshumate
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« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2004, 08:36:46 AM »

AndyC:

I'm all for free enterprise, but there is a point where it stops benefitting anyone but a few executives and large shareholders. Personally, I think the bigger Blockbuster gets, the worse it gets, in terms of service and selection.

Small, private businesses need to be protected.


Sorry, but if you're in favor of protection, you're not "all for" free enterprise, by definition.  True laissez-faire economics may recognize a need for regulation to protect consumers from harmful or unethical products and practices, but not  to artificially and consciously to modify or balance the market.  After all, that's what pure capitalism is:  The attempt to make one's business more profitable than all competitors.

Just about everyone who professes a trust in the free market finds out their own personal limit for how far they'll trust that  free market.  Congratulations, you just found yours. :-)

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Nathan Shumate
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Menard
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« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2004, 09:32:39 AM »

Although it would be easy, and frankly more satisfying, to put the blame for the larger corporations putting the small stores out of business just on the corporations, but, in many cases there are others involved. One of the culprits is local government. In a neighboring city where there had been several small craft stores for years, a big franchise craft store wanted to come to town. So a deal was struck between them and the city government to give them a free ride on payroll taxes for 8 years. All but one of the small craft stores are now out of business as they were not given a free ride. The big crafts store is still around but did not bring the jobs apparently somebody had hoped they would. The crafts store is not an isolated incident. The city leaders who were responsible apparently don't mind a photo of a ribbon cutting saying "Look what I did", but after the fact they are not standing in front of empty store fronts and headlines about the massive budget deficit saying the same thing. Another factor in this is simply us as a consumer. We were attracted by lower prices and the promise of greater selection (yet to be fulfilled). When we turned back around, the stores at which we used to shop are gone. I am seriously oversimplifying a few factors of which there are many. Unfortunately with a lot of the competition gone in some communities it certainly does take away the choice to boycott by shopping somewhere else. The biggest enemy of the corporations, however, seems to be themselves. Wal-mart may be the largest retailer now, but they have apparently decided to rest on their laurels and let stuff like inventory, store maintenance, and especially customer service slip.--and from this point, I have completely lost track of anything I was saying-- ( :

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AndyC
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« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2004, 09:51:41 AM »

I posted with the full knowledge that I would get an economics lecture. I accept that.

But my point is that free enterprise only works for the common good in the presence of abundant healthy competition. The quest for a virtual monopoly, to my thinking, interferes with the proper functioning of the system.

I'm also of the opinion that other factors, such as ethics, have been taken out of the mix. The positive goal of striving to be the best has largely been replaced by the desire to get rid of anyone better by any means available within (or not too far outside of) the law. Not that this wasn't always done, but it's become the accepted way of doing things.

I also see it as a step backward to create a climate in which only a corporation can afford to do something that an ordinary person used to be able to do, such as own a video store.

As for trusting the free market, I must confess that I trust it less and less as it becomes the sole consideration in most business decisions, particularly in the "arts." Thanks to the free market, we have scads of pointless remakes hitting theatres, radio stations across the continent playing the same bland middle-of-the road music non-stop, and loads of reality TV.

So yes, I feel even a free economy needs moderation or it reaches a point of diminishing returns for society.



Post Edited (12-31-04 04:05)
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ErikJ
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« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2004, 10:13:27 AM »

A few years after Hollywood Video opened in my town all the mom& pop stores closed up right along with Blockbuster (how odd is that) So now we have Hollywood and Movie Gallery (Not too bad of a place if you ask me)

Now a few words on monopolizing. I don't know how many of you are pro wrestling fans or not (Not that it really matters). At one time the WWF (F*&K YOU WORLD WILDLIFE FOUNDATION) had 2 companys that were compition, the WCW and ECW. Now over time ECW had major money trouble and filed chapter 11 bankruptsy. To help the owner of the company save face WWF bought the company and all rights. Then in the merger of AOL and Time/Warner the board of directors decided to sell WCW (Poor Ted wasn't even in on the deal). Guess who bought them and all rights? Now the WWE (Yuck) is the only company out there. So these guys are at the mercy of these ego maniacs. And if they don't likw it they can go back to making $50 to $100 a night. But again what did this do for WWE ratings? Well if you haven't been watching then you're not alone. My opinion is that companys like the WWE that buys out the compition are only puting the noose around their necks. All that's left is to kick the chair out.

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Sugar_Nads
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« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2004, 10:15:21 AM »

Blockbuster sucks... I can't stand their poor selection. Cheaper prices aren't exactly going to get me to leave Netflix.

I agree with Menard... There is something way more sinister *cough* (government)at hand in the monopolizing of the video market.

I heard that the same thing happened to some of the dollar stores in my area. Alot of them were forced to close their doors after the Greenbacks chain came along.
Now I know that it wasn't the competition because the "Mom & Pop" shops still had a better selection.

*Ok, now I'm going off on a tangent* Ebay does the same thing to sellers. They look the other way when Power Sellers commit crimes or get numerous negative feedback but when a small fry does it they get canned immediately. What's wrong with that picture?

BURN EBAY and kill every employee that has anything to do with them. MU-HU-HU-HA!
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AndyC
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« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2004, 10:29:36 AM »

I can appreciate exactly what you mean. A few years back, I waded into the fight against a Wal-Mart on the edge of the small community where I grew up. Unbelievable what you have to fight in a situation like that. Start with politicians who can only see property taxes and permit fees.

Add to that a really creepy, slimy developer (I do not exaggerate) who comes to town and assures everyone that the new centre will draw most of its customers from the city, and won't hurt anyone too badly. A consultant on his payroll provided a rosy report, explaining that the local market can easily bear another 250,000-odd square feet of retail space outside of any existing commercial area. An evironmental assessment declared that the forest on the property was not significant, nor was the loss of farmland. The township planners, responsible for ensuring that new development is harmonious, took the big stuff at face value and mostly wrangled over details. No concerns over whether it was an appropriate size, whether the location was right, or whether it would harm existing commercial areas.

Then there was the bribery. The developer, never seen before in our community, is suddenly sponsoring parade floats and such. Then the story got out that the company had also contributed to a few election campaigns as well.

The development was pushed through, but tied up in appeals for years. None were heard, because the various opponents eventually backed down, one by one. After some quiet negotiations, each walked away with a big payoff.

Now it just remains to be built, and we'll see who was right.

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Menard
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« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2004, 10:31:10 AM »

It has been a long time since I have watched wrestling. We used to get CWA wrestling here (Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Austin Idol). A local broadcasting group also started their own wrestling program, ICW, which interestingly enough launched the wrestling career of a local boy, Macho Man Randy Savage. I used to enjoy wrestling when it was small studios and school gymnasiums. Now, rather than the promoters trying to get stations to carry them, wrestling for several years has been more like a glammed up TV show full of event advertising that wants TV stations to come to them. Apparently there is plenty of room in that shrinking line.

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AndyC
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« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2004, 10:42:30 AM »

Sugar_Nads wrote:
> *Ok, now I'm going off on a tangent* Ebay does the same thing
> to sellers. They look the other way when Power Sellers commit
> crimes or get numerous negative feedback but when a small fry
> does it they get canned immediately. What's wrong with that
> picture?

Having run a little eBay business for a couple of years, I can vouch for that. There are a lot of really strict rules, mostly aimed at generating more listing fees for eBay, and they will pull your listings in a second if you even come close to breaking one. On the other hand, the big sellers break them all, and don't seem to be suffering any penalty. The little guys, meanwhile, can barely make a decent profit.

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Menard
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« Reply #13 on: December 30, 2004, 10:51:35 AM »

eBay has certainly become the prime example of the antithesis of customer service. Sellers want to be paid by paypal only (must be an incentive in that since paypal is part of eBay), want to be payed in 5 days or less (those who live in areas with a general postmaster route can empathize with it taking a week to mail a letter to your next door neighbor), and spell out all the things you will do as a buyer to assure the seller's satisfaction. There used to be a thing called customer service where stores would strive to assist their customers in any way they could. eBay's only loyalties, if you could call it that, are to the sellers who bring them money, and they offer little if any support for the buyer. Large companies like Wal-mart have developed an attitude of 'if we don't have it, you don't need it'. It seems more and more that rather than consumer demands determining the marketplace, the sellers are deciding what the consumer will buy.



Post Edited (12-30-04 10:44)
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Imlac
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« Reply #14 on: December 30, 2004, 04:57:02 PM »

Susan, I have some bad news for you.  Blockbuster already owns Movie Trading Company.  I knew someone who was working there at the time of the purchase.

Remember when they started carrying all of those coverless DVDs?  That was a result of the Blockbuster purchase.
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