Hollywood Express closing Davis location

[trtls.livejournal.com]

Sad. Just sad. And greedy. According to an employee the rent situation is "out of control" therefore Hollywood Express is merging the Davis Sq. stock into their Porter Sq. store. The Davis location will be closed as of July 27. If you have an account and go in before the closing day, you can get a coupon for 10 free rentals to be used by (I believe) September at the Porter location only. Yet another local store pushed out.

Comments

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Yes, but until the early 2000s, the leader in the home video business was Blockbuster. They had a death grip on the video rental market, crushing a lot of video stores under their fist with non-competitive labor practices and forcing filmmakers to recut their films because they wouldn't carry an NC-17 film. Netflix broke them and soon Blockbuster will be nothing more than a bad memory. Would that it had happened a decade earlier.

[trtls.livejournal.com]

So, we trade one huge chain for a huge monopoly. Awesome.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Netflix isn't a monopoly and doesn't have monopolistic practices, unlike Blockbuster. Blockbuster ran a similar service, which was an unmitigated disaster fiscally speaking (it had some good ideas but they were badly implemented), Redbox is competing with them by using kiosks, etc. They also are far from the only people in the online streaming space.'

Netflix is doing better because it's a better service. You've mentioned a bad experience with them, which I'm assuming is throttling. I'm not saying anybody's perfect, but, yes, Netflix IS better. Not least in the arena of freedom of speech.

[ron_newman]

But is Netflix better than the local business whose closing the OP is lamenting? That's the real issue here, not Blockbuster.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

They're not really competing. Netflix is a national service and it mostly caters to people who are too busy to go to the video store, or just don't want to. Notice that Hollywood Express isn't leaving because the company's failing: it's leaving because rents are getting jacked up. The latter is unfortunate, and I'm sure Netflix hasn't made their lives easier, but I think comparing Netflix to HE is kind of pointless.

The Porter Square BB, on the other hand, is closing likely because the company itself is about a hairsbreadth away from death. Last quarter they issued a notice that even if their credit was redone in their favor, there was a possibility the company would fail anyway.

Honestly, I was ten minutes' walk from the Davis Hollywood Express, I had an account, and I was in there maybe three times in the two years I've lived here. I rented videos from them probably twice. HE didn't lose me as a customer, and I'll still go to them whenever I have the occasional need for a movie right then. But that's rare with me.

[trtls.livejournal.com]

I mentioned a bad experience because it's true. If I had a bad experience with a local store, they would take care of me as a customer and we would be benefit. As it is, without boring you with throttling, I tried to communicate with Netflix about the problems I was having and NEVER heard anything from them. Not even a form letter response. And in one case (there were many problems) their forms didn't even have the option of telling them what the problem was nor a blank spot to put it in. I'd never have been treated so badly by a local company without them suffering as well. Netflix continues to dominate. The end result is a company with a cornered (or, fine, at least a huge chunk of a) market that doesn't care about its customers.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

>SHRUG< I've never had a bad experience with them. YMMV, of course, but I'm not objecting to your experience, just the use of words like "monopoly" and "cornered". Home video rental now is VASTLY more competitive than it used to be, and I don't want people to lose sight of that lest the old abuses of the system return.