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I walk into Sunshine yesterday for milk, and what do I find?
A big green DVD rental box! Instead of going with Illinois-based Redbox like Hy-Vee in Sioux Falls (and 22,000 other locations nationwide), Roemen went with Brandon-based Prairie Video, which has over 120 machines in seven states, including the Sunshines in Tea, Lennox, and Sioux Falls.
DVDs for $1 per day. No late fee; you just pay another buck for each day you keep it. Forget that video under the couch for a month, and you've just paid $30 for one movie.So on the good side, Roemen has restored a little of the movie selection his booze crowded out. He's also doing business with a South Dakota company On the bad side, movies from a tin box can't replace the selection of a full movie store. And we've replaced an independent entrepreneur and six jobs with a green box. One step up, two steps back.
Nice to see it. In fact, if it is popular, hopefully Dan will install another machine. Much easier on the budget to pay $1 than $3 per movie.
ReplyDeleteThe other side to the departure of Mr. Movies was their game selection. The Madison location was said to have a strong following in video game rentals. Hopefully someone can provide that service to families and students again.
What Dan has done is restore a portion of Madison's family entertainment choices after Mr. Movies moved out of Madison, and Movie Guy cut their space in half.
Netflix/Gamefly. That is all. Better yet, with native netflix streaming on my Tivo I don't even have to wait.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Tony—build Google Fiber, and they might as well turn those green boxes (and Redboxes) into pop machines. Any chance DVDs will remain on the market longer than VHS?
ReplyDeleteThat's really hard to predict CAH. It's not a technological issue, netflix demonstrates empirically that it's possible. The only limit is really the movie studios.
ReplyDeleteI also use Rhapsody with their to go plan. So, for a fixed monthly fee, I have unlimited access to their entire catalog of music that I can stream to my computer or download to an authorized player (sansa 280 for me). It's profitable for them and perfect for me. No physical media to break and a constantly increasing music library.
My guess is that cable TV companies are the only obstacle to unlimited streaming. They are just too profitable and too tied in to the content producers. It's only a matter of time though. Now that Netflix/HBOonDemand/other streaming services have shown the way, everyone else will pile onto the future.