No they aren't. Look at all the customers who fled Blockbuster and went to Netflix. Look at the customer satisfaction for Netflix. Blockbuster became a dinosaur in 2006 and remains one today. And their efforts to copy the Netflix model have failed.
Yes, Blockbuster is better and that is not an opinion, it is a fact, feature-wise (I’m only talking about the mail rental program and not digital stream services). However, companies with the best products and services aren’t always the most successful ones. Marketing and business decisions can be the downfall. That is the case with Blockbuster. Look at the features of Blockbuster Mail versus Netflix Mail. Blockbuster has newer releases than Netflix. The get some movies weeks to a month before Netflix. Blu-ray is included and game rentals are also included. You could also exchange mail discs at stores to get a movie immediately rather than waiting for one to come in the mail. With Netflix, they had no game rentals and blu-ray rentals are an extra fee. Plus, you have no way to exchange at a store to get a movie immediately.
Customers fled Blockbuster for the mail rentals. Blockbuster didn’t have them at first. The problem was that Netflix started their mail rental service a year or two before Blockbuster did. If Blockbuster had the foresight to do this first or around the same time, Netflix would have never succeeded. But they didn’t…and that is why they are where they’re at, today. Even though what Blockbuster provides is better, they have little chance of getting those customers back. Poor marketing and too late to the party.
With Blockbuster’s physical stores closing at a rapid pace, they are losing the in-store exchange advantage. Netflix is also starting to include game rentals. So, Blockbuster is losing that advantage. If you don’t care about Blu-ray rentals, Netflix is also slightly cheaper at their base DVD rate. Netflix is what people think about now. People have little incentive to switch over to Blockbuster. In fact, most people don’t even realize that Blockbuster had movie rental by mail since 2004. Crappy marketing there. They were focused on physical stores when they should have been pushing their mail rental service like Netflix did.
Regardless, Blockbuster is owned by Dish. They will not go out of business unless Dish sells them or shuts the division down….which doesn’t look likely.
Most of the stores near me have closed and I now have to drive 10 miles, each way, to get to one. The in store exchange was the best feature for me and this pisses me off. The thing is, the majority of physical Blockbuster stores are closing not because they are unsuccessful (not profitable) . It is because landlords are refusing to renew the leases of these stores. Profitable stores are closing because they are being kicked out. The company is have trouble finding locations to move these stores to because landlords also will not give them a lease or a prime location. So landlords are screwing them over, there.
As a customer, this sucks for all of us. We get less benefits with Netflix than we do with Blockbuster. But Netflix is catching up (they never will with in-store exchange).
But anyway, to anyone under 40, the Blockbuster name is a joke now. Even if their service is good, they won't be able to make it on that brand. (Sort of like how Windows Phone is a decent OS, but no one wants a "Windows" phone.)
Well, I'm definitely under 40. But maybe in Canada is what you are referring to....
