Redbox arrives in video store heaven! But the afterlife isn't all that great when Redbox meets its predecessors. Could this be video store hell?
The movie rental business follows the course of technology and culture. A rental business thrives until someone else has a better idea, then it dies, and the cycle continues. The current "winners" are video-on-demand and streaming services, but one day someone will figure out how to make that model more convenient or more affordable or better in some way. Redbox, on the other hand, was a victim of mismanagement. The vending machine for movies has been in bankruptcy court for some time. On July 10, they went into Chapter 7 liquidation, which means that all 26,000 Redbox kiosks are defunct. Matt Mitchell single-handedly illustrates how the cycle of video rental businesses works when one company after another leapfrogs to the top with a better idea and then dies. The truth comes out when they all meet in video store heaven.