Video rental chain Blockbuster will close its last 300 retail stores by January 2014. It marks the end of the popularity of video stores, where you had to go through rain and storm to see a movie you liked. Due to the increased popularity of online video services like Netflix and the wide availability of pirated movies the retail stores were doomed to be closed and the time has come.
Blockbuster will continue to exist but will only distribute movies through their Blockbuster Now service and Dish will gain the retail licensing rights of the Blockbuster brand.
Besides the retail stores, Blockbuster will also cease operations of their disc-by-mail service which made it possible to subscribe to a plan where you could watch a certain amount of DVDs per month. Once you watched the movie you would send it back by mail and the service would send you another disc from your online wishlist.
At its peak, Blockbuster operated more than 9,000 stores around the world and in less than 10 years the they've now all been closed. We wonder how many people will miss Blockbusters' retail presence, are there still people renting physical discs?
