Blockbuster & Netflix... A David & Goliath Story

A very specific memory hit me earlier today while planning the night with my son over breakfast:

Driving to Blockbuster on a Friday night... Walking the aisles for 30 minutes, debating movies with your friends or family, and hoping there was still one copy left. 📼

Honestly? It felt like an event every weekend. Which made me realize something kind of wild:

Blockbuster existed for 29 years (1985–2014) and Netflix is coming up on its 29th birthday this year (though streaming has only existed for 19 years)
Netflix still isn’t as old as Blockbuster was before its collapse 🤯 (technically there’s still one Blockbuster left!)

At its peak, Blockbuster had ~9,000 stores and was basically synonymous with "Friday night." They were so dominant that in 2000 the Netflix founders offered to sell the company for $50M... Blockbuster famously laughed them out of the room (dramatic irony perhaps?)

Now, we live in an age where:
→ Movies arrive instantly
→ Nobody rewinds anything (remember the standalone rewinding machines??)
→ And we spend more time scrolling than actually watching something

The funny part? Blockbuster doesn't even feel that old, but in one generation we went from:
"Be kind, rewind" 📼
to
"AI robots will recommend your next show before you finish the current one" 🤖

And yet somehow, Friday night still ends exactly the same way: 45 minutes of scrolling and nothing to watch. 😂

Happy Friday 🍿. What do you think was a bigger turn for the worse – Blockbuster or Blackberry? drop your thoughts (or favorite Blockbuster memory) in the comments ⤵️

p.s. That last Blockbuster exists in Bend, Oregon. I found pictures and now I kind of want to make a trip (maybe I can hit up the last Chuck E Cheese with animatronics too)