Aces Full of Links

I'm not sure what to call this phenomenon, but I've encountered it twice in the last week. Let's call it the "helpful genius" phenomenon.

Person (preferably female?) is faced with public problem. Helpful genius (ALWAYS male) comes up and offers helpful (annoying) suggestions.

The second time was with the redbox. The helpful genius, an old guy in one of those shopping carts you sit in and drive, started out helping the people who were gathered around the box when I arrived at the supermarket, but he came back to help me. I found out about him because when he left the first time, the guy who was already there was obviously very annoyed with him and was talking about him. (I wanted to say, try being a woman in a parking lot with your hood up.)

My first helpful genius encounter this week was when Jenn and I went to the bank with some GS business, and then her car wouldn't start. She'd had the problem before (some weird electrical thing with the alarm system), and said it needed to be jumped. So I got out my jumper cables and we hooked it up, but we couldn't get it to start. We had no fewer than five helpful geniuses confirm that we had hooked the cables up correctly and question Jenn about her car. "Which car won't start? Well you know that one has to be running if you want to jump it, heh heh." None of them were any help. Jenn's husband finally came and jumped it from his car. It needed a lot of persistence.

I might rent if they have something I want, but I'm more likely to be looking for an older movie. Even so, given the futility of my last few Blockbuster visits, I might be more likely to rent from a Redbox regardless.

They didn't have one at the Fairhaven store on Friday, but maybe one is coming soon.

I saw one of these at the Stop and Shop in Pawtucket the other night. My first thought was: "Oh great, another job eliminated by a machine."

I doubt I'd ever rent from one because I have netflix. Not only that, they're likely to pop up mainly in supermarkets, and there's a Hollywood Video in the plaza of the closest supermarket to me.

It seems like a good idea on its surface but ultimately very limited. Sure, the price seems good, but most videos will not be returned the next day (unless you work at the Supermarket, or maybe drive by it on your way to work) and will wind up costing, on average, as much as a Hollywood/Blockbuster rental, only the latter have a much larger selection (and tend to have locations in every supermarket plaza).

Interesting -- Netflix is replacing jobs with a machine as much as this is, as far as I can tell. Instead of someone delivering the DVD to your house, they're delivering it to the box. Instead of someone sorting the DVDs at a Netflix facility, someone is putting them into the Redbox cases. Instead of interacting with a website, you interact with a touch screen.

But it is a lot more limited than Netflix. I expect they are going for the impulse rental.

THe box was still broken today, so I have yet to return the disk, and yet to find out whether I will be charged for the subsequent days. It's too bad I didn't rent a good movie that I wanted to watch again!

What both redbox and netflix (and blockbuster and hollywood video for that matter) are replacing aren't so much jobs as locally owned businesses. We still use the local video store exclusively. They happen to have a better selection than the blockbusters in the area and since we rent maybe 1-2 dvds a month it's cheaper than netflix (plus I don't need to decide what I want to watch in advance).

The only time a locally owned business made a difference for me in DVD rental was when I got to know the cool guy at the RX Place and he was able to recommend weird films to me, and was also able to (in some cases) influence his bosses on which films they bought and stocked the store with.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, I have not needed advice on DVD/video selection (or such expertise has not really been available in a local store). In any case, the point became moot soon after the time Blockbuster rolled in. DVD rental is different from, say, a hardware store where some expertise at the right time can really make a difference. Also differnt from a local restaurant where the personal touch translates to individuality and quality.

Nevertheless, I used to rent from a place in Fall River (bottom of President Ave) that was locally owned. They had a rent one, get one free deal which I usually took advantage of. I also showed up when they had their periodical DVD/video sell-off events complete with hot dogs and prizes. I never got too friendly wiht the owners, though, because I didn't need much interaction. Altough we were familiar to each other.

They got bought by a small chain, and now there aren't any small local DVD renters. Soon after that, I got Netflix. So that's how that went.

I used to go to a great locally-owned video store in Winter Park. Then I moved to Orlando and I was back to Blockbuster as my only reasonable choice. :(

I think there was a local video store in Fairhaven when I moved to New Bedford, but it was gone within a few months (by the time I was ready to rent a movie). The Blockbuster is on my way home from work (as is the Stop & Shop), so I can easily return a movie the day after I rent it. That'd make Redbox a much better deal for me, if we get one.

I resent the forced conglomeratization in this country!

I don't miss the pleasure of talking to teenagers at video stores nor the repeated round-trips to them with my car to them so Netflix wins the cost-benefit analysis for me. I'd also find it difficult to use rental option that didn't have as wide a selection of titles as Netflix.

The people at our local video store are great. They seem to pay attention when hiring their employees.

they actually own three store in our local area and stock every movie I've ever looked for. The only thing they're a little behind in is stocking the latest tv shows on dvd.

Bonus: One dude looks like the Kergan ("Highlander"). At least he did before he chopped all his hair off.

Both our local vidoe stores are pretty nasty. There's the Blockbuster and a local one across the street. Neither gives good service and they frequently don't have what I want. I think Redbox would probably suffer from the latter, as well, as I am not usually after the latest releases. But I can't justify the cost of NetFlix for my renting habits.

I'd probably give the Redbox a try if there was one around. According to the site, they aren't in California yet. Then again, according to the site, they aren't in MA either. :)

Not everyone had a good local video store. A store that doesn't add value really isn't giving you anything worthy of keeping them in business. Local or not.

I want to keep good services in business, not mediocre ones.

It's great if you have a good local rental place. I'll go to a local place if it offers something more (which could be as simple as "nice people.") But it sounds like BOB and Patti have someone most people don't.

Since redbox is owned by McDonald's, when do you think they'll stock Spurlock's SuperSize Me?

Another thing the local place offers over netflix is the ability to browse and not to feel like I HAVE to watch a movie. We definately have different viewing habits. I may go months without renting anything. With netflix if I don't want to watch anything I still have to pay for the service.

Often we'll go into the store not knowing what we ant to watch and just poke around until we find something.

Yes, I wander over to the Foreign Films section, much to the dismay of my partner.

I see that more as a bricks-and-mortar advantage, not a locally owned store advantage, since Blockbuster gives you the ability to browse as well.