I would guess that the waste is not significantly more than the impact on the environment of driving to blockbusters.

Posted by: on November 30, 2002 10:41 AM

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i suspect the real concern is more about copyright infringement than about driving the video back. there are already rental scenarios that provide mail returns for people who don't want to drive.

Posted by: dix on November 30, 2002 11:23 AM

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Self destructing DVDs don't do anything to prevent copyright infringement. Until it stops working altogether, the DVD acts just like a regular DVD. A person can still rip or copy it as long as the DVD is still playable.

Posted by: Adam Kalsey on November 30, 2002 11:32 AM

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Yes, driving back to Blockbuster is a pain.

The biggest pain is not driving back to Blockbuster but the late fees when you forget to return videos on time. I read recently that late fees account for about 20% of Blockbuster's revenues. Now you may wonder how someone could be so absent-minded as to routinely get stuck with late fees. I thought the same thing until I had a couple of school age kids. Things get extremely busy (much more hectic than when my life was my own) and returning videos is not high on the list of things you must do - but it truly ticks you off when you find out you owe $15.00 in late fees.

I also worked for Divx and it wasn't the consumers who rejected it. We were on track to meet our sales projections (we weren't going gang-busters to be sure but we were doing pretty good). What killed Divx was industry rejection. The other retailers and many of the studios refused to support Divx.

Say what you will about the Divx format and the concept, but for someone who gets charged late fees and doesn't want to go back and forth to the video store, the possibility of buying a disc and playing it when you want then never returning it had a lot of appeal.

As far as environmental waste, if that bothers you, what about the use of fossil fuels to get to and from the video store? I think the environmental argument is and was a red-herring.

Posted by: beanball on November 30, 2002 12:40 PM

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Yeah, that was my first reaction. Blockbuster has zero incentive to use a system that's going to reduce late fees.

However, this technology would be a signigicant improvement for the Netflix model, reducing the shipping cost by 50%, or more if you shipped the disk in a cardboard envelope.

Posted by: Barry Parr on November 30, 2002 05:58 PM

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The waste is significantly higher with mail-order vs. drop-off. While you expend resources to drive back & forth to Blockbuster, people often drive with multiple purposes in mind. If I visit the grocery store too, the waste is reduced. If I walk -- nada! People rent from local stores, right? Why drive across town when the store around the corner has the exact same product? The grocery store I visit even rents videos. The fossil fuel argument gets weaker and weaker.

Besides, don't fool yourself into thinking the postal service or UPS deliver your DVD back-and-forth on fairy wings. They pollute too. The difference is that the DVDs initially arrive at Blockbuster in a bulk shipment -- less packaging involved.

Whereas, with mail-order you are contributing to a HUGE problem -- landfill waste. Most waste in our burdened landfills is packaging. The more we buy mail-order and/or products that have excessive packaging, the more we contribute to the problem.

I would not be surprised if mail-order products become subject to a national tax or state tax in the next 5 years to pay for packaging disposal.

Posted by: Kent Sievers on November 30, 2002 08:57 PM

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I dont understand this. How can ruining the environment be a solution to anything? And how can you rather face environmental problems than to pay late fees which is something you can control?

My sister has 3 kids all under the age of 10 and all watch lots and lots of movies, but they very rarely pay late fees. Because as it was brought up earlier, the store is on their way home. Put the movies in the car once you're done watching and then drop them off when you're passing by Blockbuster. Get the Blockbuster DVD Pass, and you'll have no due dates!

No possible way something that is environmentally disastrous is going to be a solution to our irresponsibility. I will find it plausible when we are able to create a DVD that can transport itself to the store it belongs to after being watched.

Oh and don't get me started on cars and fuels, I'm all against SUVs and see no point in them, neither in owning two cars per person in a household.

The environment is too important, and mother nature is already trying to show us how we've succeeded as a species, in royally screwing it up. The oil spills, global warming, ever increasing natural disasters, untimely high winds, tornadoes, hurricanes... I don't know what else we need to see that MONEY IS NOT GOING TO MAKE US HAPPY IF WE DONT HAVE THE WORLD TO LIVE IN.

Posted by: on December 2, 2002 12:36 PM

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Is the Netflix packaging really that wasteful, it's just paper which is recycled, no? Anyway, I'll never rent another movie from Blockbuster given how well Netflix has worked for me.

Posted by: Thad on December 2, 2002 03:33 PM

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I liked the idea of DivX for rental, but not for purchased DVDs - that is where it went wrong. Walt Disney was talking about doing that to their movies, and people (rightly) freaked out. It was just a matter of time before retailers and industry people got wind of the backlash. The whole idea put a freeze on DVD player buying during a Christmas season when they were expecting units to fly off the shelf. They had inventory that was already turning obsolete as new players improved on old design. Only when there was some assurance that DivX was not going to be used did people start buying again. No wonder they refused to support it.

This was once instance where consumers really did make their voice heard. It's kind of a shame, because I and most of my friends were initially excited by the technology, thinking that it would make sampling DVDs a more attractive option, seeing the applications for rental, etc.

Posted by: Lydia on December 2, 2002 05:02 PM

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