Does anybody else miss renting?

[Lyedecker]

As much as I miss renting obscure and b-movie stuff, I have to hand it to netflix. They offer a pretty decent selection of good documentaries and they often surprise me with some of the older films they offer for streaming. I suppose old b-movies are pretty cheap to license...

[Josso]

I think without a voting system (like so theoretically you could get anything onto netflix like Gasper Noe films or whatever) and a good global community implementation I would never support it, appreciate what they are trying to do though and I like how they release whole seasons at once.

[claws]

My old membership card 

The video store closed in the early 2000s, it was one of my favorite places to rent movies. The staff would give you a hot cup of coffee if you came in on a cold day in winter. They had small snacks and treats on the counter they would put in your bag of rented tapes during the week of Halloween. Membership fee was $25 a year. God I miss that place.

The other card with written numbers was from another rental place. Each video box had a number and you had to write it down and give it to the lady behind the counter. If I recall correctly the two 14 numbers were definitely horror titles. The 8599 number must have been a new release I was eager to rent because I wrote it down big lol

[Lyedecker]

I think without a voting system (like so theoretically you could get anything onto netflix like Gasper Noe films or whatever) and a good global community implementation I would never support it, appreciate what they are trying to do though and I like how they release whole seasons at once.

It's great for classic TV shows. I started watching Miami Vice

[Pilgermann]

I very occasionally rent movies at one of the few remaining stores in town called Wild and Woolly Video, and they've got most anything you can imagine, but I generally download a lot of obscure of crap from a private tracker or buy things I really want (although my buying habits have slowed down a bit).

What I really miss is being a child and browsing through the store and being amazed or weirded out by all of the horror VHS covers.  They were movies I was never allowed to see but I was fascinated by them.

[FatFreddysCat]

Oh yeah, I miss the "rental experience." In the late 80s/early 90s I had membership cards for at least 4 or 5 local video stores (big chains and mom-and-pop shops) so if I had a certain movie in mind and it wasn't at one store, I had others that I could hit up for it.

As a preteen I loved wandering down the horror aisle and checking out all the weird/creepy/bizarre box cover artwork. I was literally too scared to watch some of those movies till many years later!!

...then Blockbuster came along and gobbled them up all those smaller stores, leaving us with  a bland, homogenized, sanitized family-friendly "rental" experience.