[HiTech RedNeck]

Hollywood’s own birth was among thieves. Karma happens.

[TankerKC]

The unions would have fought to ban cars to save their jobs at the buggy whip factory.

[2ndDivisionVet]

100 years ago: Buggy whip makers, stablehands rally against new Model T Horseless Carriage.

[Little Pig]

They going after BlockBuster too? My local BB rents for $1 a night.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

During the summer we cancelled Netflix and used Redbox occasionally, but I wasn't really happy with it. You can't cancel a movie you accidentally reserved online, even to replace it with another, and one time they charged my account out of the clear blue sky for no apparent reason.

We just resumed Netflix last week, and I like it much better. You can get blank DVDs for 20 cents apiece now, and if you burn and return as soon as you get them you can easily burn 24 DVDs a month on their $18 3-disk at a time plan.

[Hodar]

Ok, color me confused.

What is the difference if I rent a movie and pay Redbox $1 to watch it, or if I rent the same movie and pay Blockbuster $4 to watch it?

Either way, Hollywood sold a DVD to the kiosk, or to the store. If I rent it, and I like it; I will meander to Wal-Mart and buy my own copy.

So, how exactly how does Redbox hurt Hollywood?

I would argue that I watch movies from my RedBox kiosk for $1, that I would NOT even consider renting from Blockbuster at a higher cost.

[Slicksadick]

Netflix was killing the mom & pop stores long before redbox.

[pnh102]

If unions hate Redbox then it must be good.

[KarlInOhio]

than the $3-$5/night prices charged by the average video store, according to Video Business.

How many charge $3-$5/night? I've seen that much for a few days of rental, but never just one night. I suppose they hate Netflix too, because if you get maximum throughput of 3 days per disk (mail 1, watch 1, mail 1) you can get below $1/day.

[pallis]

I don’t see less revenues for Hollywood as a bad thing. Let them tighten their belts and experience the low quality, cheap, mostly filth movies of the pop culture they worked so hard to create. The B class crowd seems to flourish with $1 dollar rentals. One dollar is too much to pay for most of the crap passing for new movies.

[-YYZ-]

“those machines”—think Redbox and its ilk—”are to the video industry what the Internet was to the music business—disaster.”

Uh, no - the internet is to the video “industry” what it was/is to music industry. Already people are downloading pretty much anything they might want, often including movies that are still running (or haven’t even started running) in the theatres.

[I_Like_Spam]

Back in the 80s I worked for a supermarket, and was a member of the UFCW as a result.

In the union magazine, the big issue the union railed against was scanners, and how the machines were going to destroy millions of jobs for people who marked the prices on merchandise in stores.

Unions have always had problems with technological progress, its just part of the character of the beast.

[Hacklehead]

You mean the rich degenerate anti-American leftists in Hollywood might be hurt? Where do I sign up?? A goal of conservatives should be to defund these hollywood traitors by any means necessary.

[VRWCmember]

Typical of unions and big hollywood to fight for limiting consumers’ choices.

[mysterio]

Please. I have never been to a union video store. I'd be surprised if anyone else has either.

That being said, my local video store has almost priced me out of the market. It's pushing $4.80 a rental now, so I only go there when I have to. My funds are pretty low now, so "have to" and movies don't go in the same sentence as much as they used to.

As for Redbox, I have tried them and they were ok. But it seems the machine is always breaking and if you go inside the store to tell them, they tell you tough mammary glands, they have nothing to do with the machine. Well, it's on your property and tied to your chain, so you have some responsibility for it. I bet they wouldn't have any qualms about calling the cops if I put a sledgehammer through the thing when it won't let me return a DVD. Anyway, I had that happen enough times that I decided to use the redbox a lot less. (The DVD return problems, not the sledgehammer, lol.)

[Jmouse007]

We love Red Box!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is a great service, $1 a day as opposed to $5 - $6 at Blockbuster.

The only thing I wish for is that Red Box would rent Blu Ray disks as well in our area (Southern New Hampshire).

[Covenantor]

Gary Cook of UA Local 87, the union that represents movie studio plumbers: "It's going to kill the industry," Cook warned the Times.

Thank goodness the movie studio plumbers union are there to examin the books.

Is there anything a Hollywood plumber can't do?

[4yearlurker]

Cable companies are also killing the store DVD rental business. Comcast on demand has the movie the same day it's released on DVD for $4.99. I think cable employees are union workers.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

DVDs are going to go the way of the 8 track cassette. I go to pre-played stores to check out the video games, and it’s lined up with dvds from tv shows. I don’t even buy dvds anymore, I just use on-demand from Time Warner.

[Rebelbase]

Refrigeration killed the Ice House industry.