???? – 2013retired
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“It told friends where you were, back when that felt like a gift instead of a leak.”
“Be kind, rewind — the whole world did, and then the world moved on”
Blockbuster began in 1985 as a single home video rental shop founded by David Cook, and grew into a public store chain offering video game rentals, DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand, and even cinema. It expanded internationally through the 1990s, and at its 2004 peak employed 84,300 people across 9,094 stores. For millions of families, a trip to Blockbuster was Friday night itself — browsing the aisles for the
The Great Recession, poor leadership, and rising competition from Netflix's mail-order and streaming services and Redbox kiosks eroded revenue through the late 2000s, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010. Dish Network bought the remaining 1,700 stores in 2011, and by 2014 the last 300 company-owned stores had closed. Yet a handful of franchised locations hung on, and after further closures in 2019,
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“It told friends where you were, back when that felt like a gift instead of a leak.”
“Glass and steel, held call until it didn't, and taught us all how to FaceTime.”
“Signed out one last time — away message: gone but not forgotten.”