Ananth

The first time I heard about Netflix it was one of those, "Damn, I should have thought of that" moments. For the record, I am a big fan, for more than just the entertainment value - Netflix is a good example of capitalism at work. In Netflix, your Blockbusters and Hollywood videos finally had a tough competitor, which was great because they could no longer charge their outrageous rental fees. It's a measure of how successful Netflix has been that rental outlets have been closing down left and right ... Netflix is more convenient for the user in every aspect, and what they do requires less investment and manpower, so it's win-win. 

All that having been said, it's hard for me to write off rental stores. The Blockbuster in Wheaton was a big part of my childhood ... Archer's dad would take Archer and my brother and I out to rent movies and video games every couple of weeks like clockwork. The one trip I remember with particular clarity was when we rented Sonic & Knuckles. There were three copies on the shelf, and we were ecstatic when we realized we got the last one. We brought it home and the weekend was a blur of pixels running sideways really fast, in-game or otherwise. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that one day they release a new (I'm italicizing for YOU Sega!) sidescrolling Sonic game for the XBox360 (Megaman 9 was a success, even if it was balls to the wall hard). I can dream, right? HAHA no they're never going to release anything like that. D: