Blockbuster Files For Bankruptcy, It's The Beginning Of The End

It’s been a bad week for anyone who likes finding DVDs in actual stores, rather than ordering them off the internet. First we learned that Best Buy is abandoning DVD sales, now comes word that Blockbuster, unsurprisingly, is in trouble.

The last remaining DVD rental giant announced today that they’ve filed for bankruptcy. Their reasons for doing so are obscured behind a lot of meaningless, corporate gobbledeegook but the truth is this: No one goes to Blockbuster anymore. If you want to rent a DVD or Blu-ray you do it through Netflix or you grab one out of the Redbox at McDonalds. Still, you’d think the recent demise of Hollywood Video would have helped their bottom line at least some. The disappearance of a major competitor should have, in theory, at least sent a few more people to their stores. Apparently they all joined Netflix instead.

So far this bankruptcy filing is expected to have no impact on any of Blockbuster’s stores. They assure everyone that all of their U.S. operations will continue as normal. And that may be, for now. But the writing’s on the wall here folks. Those Friday nights spent wandering between the rental store’s shelves wondering why they don’t have a single copy of Dark City but have ten copies of Contact, are all but over.