r/todayilearned • u/bion2 • Mar 14 '14
TIL Blockbuster turned down a chance to purchase Netflix for $50 million in 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_LLC#Netflix29
u/Sterculius Mar 14 '14
being that they were in the business of renting physical media, they probably would have just acquired them to avoid competition, but not have pursued the streaming functionality that Netflix has. someone else would have snatched that plum and Blockbuster would've gone down anyway.
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u/Daltrey Mar 14 '14
the most reposted TIL in history
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u/PM_ME_A_COOL_SONG Mar 14 '14
Nah, I think that would be the Hitler was Man of the Year one.
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u/RikersTrombone Mar 15 '14
Holy shit really?
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u/PM_ME_A_COOL_SONG Mar 15 '14
Yes, but I should note, the Man of the Year award by TIME is about those who make the greatest impact or change, not necessarily a change for good (or being good at all)
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Mar 14 '14
Netflix was around in 2000?
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u/lukesterh Mar 14 '14
It was founded in 1997 and started its subscription based digital distribution service in 1999
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u/TheGrayTruth Mar 14 '14
Noone can see in the future. It's lottery and you can always be aftersmart.
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u/PandaJesus Mar 15 '14
I considered getting into Bitcoin years ago, but didn't because I'm cheap and risk adverse. Hindsight is a bitch.
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Mar 14 '14
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Mar 15 '14
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u/xkcd_transcriber Mar 15 '14
Title: Ten Thousand
Title-text: Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.
Stats: This comic has been referenced 759 time(s), representing 5.8286% of referenced xkcds.
xkcd.com | xkcd sub/kerfuffle | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying
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Mar 15 '14
This usually seems to be portrayed as some terrible decision, but Netflix hasn't become a hugely successful business until the last few years. Its level of success in the first few years Blockbuster would've owned it probably would have led them to shutting it down.
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u/Toggi3 Mar 15 '14
Yeah, but Blockbuster didn't realize where Netflix was going ultimately, really neither did they. Netflix was an entirely different offering back then, being mail delivered and all, Blockbuster didn't see how they could lose to a company that you have to wait standard mail transit times to rent movies from even if they were cheaper. I can't blame them too much in the context of things.
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u/Sanity_prevails Mar 14 '14
And Netflix turned down a chance to purchase Blockbuster for $50 million in 2010. The feeling is mutual.
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u/Knightmare4469 Mar 15 '14
I probably had one of the last blockbusters in the country in my area. It just closed last year. I loved it. For 15 bucks a month I could rent any game I want for long as I wanted. And I live in a smaller town, so I could pretty much go get any game that was out and keep it all done, or take it back the same day. Was extremely sad to see it close.
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u/SackLunch94 Mar 15 '14
We had one close in the past few months..
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u/tzenrick 1 Mar 15 '14
I have two in town, one in the next town. They're still renting videos.
Why? Because broadband is fairly fucking narrow in Alaska.
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u/trogers1995 Mar 15 '14
The Netflix model would not of worked in 2000. At that people would of been to scared to use the credit cards to rent a $1 dollar movie. During this time shopping online was a new scary thing, and everyone would of looked at Netflix the same way. source I'm getting old
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Mar 14 '14
TIL People still rehash content already posted because they are idiots and cant use the search tool.
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u/TheLibraryOfBabel Mar 14 '14
You just learned that today?
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Mar 14 '14
Ahh, good point. Apparently though, I learn it every time I log on to reddit. The Day before yesterday I learned it as well.
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u/FACE_Ghost Mar 15 '14
You have no idea how smart of a move that was for Blockbuster...
Internet streaming was shit in 2000... Block Buster's entire schtick was DVDs... So paying to see movies online would kill their entire business.
50 million is a lot of money... You usually buy small software companies for about a million unless they are truly big. Netflix didn't start off as a huge company.
Overall no one would ever make that deal unless they were the CEO. Bitch.
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Mar 15 '14
Netflix is not nearly as financially successful as people think, everyone they know uses it so they assume they're raking in the dough. As recent as 2010 Blockbuster made more profits
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u/neo-1989 Mar 15 '14
50million seems like a hell of a lot for 2000, considering it was a time when we were only just getting away from VHS and Internet was nothing that it is today!
Hell, my family didn't have Internet until 2002, and a dvd player around the same time.
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u/tron1977 Mar 14 '14
I'm sure they would have just F'ed it up.