I'm not going to comment on anyone else's opinions or feelings on this topic, because I'm really not into arguing for the next 2 years about this. So instead, since this topic is a bit of a sore spot for me, I'll just give my opinion and be done with it.
JUST MY OPINION, and RANT. If you don't like rants, please don't read my post and skip to the next one.
REDBOXOverall I think Red Box sucks. It might be a great idea, but in practice it mostly sucks. The "good" do not out weight the "sucks" for me. Obviously, they do for the majority, and that's why they thrive.
The GOOD - Reserve movies on-line is pretty cool. If Blockbuster/Hollywood Video had done this, their end would have taken longer. But see below on this one.
- Price is/was better. Blockbuster pricing was really a joke. Hollywood Video was much better.
- Great for vacations. When you are on a vacation to a rental house or something, it's great because your account exists everywhere.
- Can return to any location, not just where you rented. Again great for vacations or when you are traveling.
The SUCKS - On-line reservations do not always work. This has happened to us on many occasions. You get to the Red Box location, and the machine says, oops, sorry, we made a mistake, come back next time.
- Machines are broken down and won't even take returns. Happens about 1 in 5 times. So in order to not get double charged, you have to drive to another location.
- Since it's basically one person at a time, lines are terrible. Our Kroger has 2 machines and the lines still suck. See next line.
- Anyone in this day and age that doesn't at least try to do the on-line reservations, stands in front of the machine for like 10-15 minutes searching for a movie to watch while others behind them stand and wait are total d*mb f*ck assh*les. It's pure ignorance, stupidy, and its RUDE. A big F.U. to all those people. Of course for legal purposes no one on this forum is included in that statement.
- The titles are so limited. It's usually new releases, and that's about it. There are some others, and they randomly bring back old stuff, but there is no ryhme nor reason to it. If you want a movie more than 6 months old you can basically forget about it. If you want to pull out an old classic, it ain't happening. If you want a movie that's not a big time name, your odds grow slim.
- Gone is the spontaneity of swinging by Blockbuster on a Saturday night after hanging at a bar with friends and discussing some old movie. Red box won't have it. You have to plan ahead, either by computer of phone etc, and planning ahead is not spontaneous. There are so many movies over the years that we only rented after looking at and reading the box. Now, we only tend to rent the movies we have definitely heard of, the big names, so we miss out on all those secondary films.
- Gone is the one one interaction with store employee's and the other people in the store. We rented many movies over the years from recommendations from perfect strangers. That's gone.
- When you get a bad disc and it won't play, you have to rely on Red Box to trust you to get your money back. There isn't any just returning to the store, showing the clerk, and getting another copy or your money back. You are supposed to contact Red Box first, get their okay to return it, then do what they tell you to, like go to a specific store etc.
- All the bull sh*t hype about convenience. Red Box is not any more convenient that Blockbuster or Hollywood for many many people. People who say it's "WAY" more convenient are full of sh*t. It might be a "little" more convenient for some, but not WAY more. That is unless you live in an apartment building that has it's own Red Box vs a Blockbuster miles away. Maybe in New York city. But here in suburbia land, where driving to either is necessary, we find it LESS convenient, for sure.
There's more to say and more to add to my SUCKS list above but I'm going to stop it here. This is a loose wide open topic that will never end well on a forum.
Bottom line, I much preferred our local Hollywood Video to Red Box. If they had just gotten with the plan, had advance on-line reservations, and lowered the rental fee, MAYBE....... I don't mind that Red Box exists, I just mind that any other physical "go to" places don't exist.
The same goes for Record stores, but oh man, is THAT a sore topic with me.
As for the main topic of Blu-ray going away, I'm sure it will happen, but it will be on-demand streaming that will do it. I recently read an article about Samsung developing 5G technology. According to them, 5G is so fast that it will only take a matter of seconds to download an entire 4K Ultra HD movie with full blown Dolby True or DTS Master soundtracks. That's fast.
But I will miss the physical media for sure. I will miss it a lot.
But not as much as CD's or other physical media music formats. That's what really sucks to me. MUSIC. Downloading blows big chunks.
Cheers ---- Bonzo
(Edited to add the last 2 lines)