Re: Revival of Independent Physical Video Rental Shops
Thanks to Paul from Defiant Sloth for bringing two more video rental shops to my attention—I literally just learned about The Video Shop Mpls yesterday.
And thanks to Robert Birming for encouraging the JulyReply challenge.
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My husband was laid off from his job eight months ago. Money started to get tight. Non-essential items, starting with streaming services, were getting cut from the budget.
We don’t watch a lot of TV to begin with, but we enjoy our Friday night ritual of baking a frozen pizza and a watching a movie with the kids. We pick out our shows intentionally and watch a handful at a time. But without streaming services (and without a blu-ray/dvd player) we didn’t have a ton of options.
We were lucky: we were gifted a pre-owned blu-ray player around the holidays. We borrowed dvd collections from friends and family. I started attending estate sales, perusing personal collections and picking out old favorites at $1/piece. We were starting completely from scratch, since we switched to a fully digital library in 2013. But because of our little community, our collection slowly started to grow.
Above: the first estate sale I visited had a huge collection to choose from. I think I paid $30 and brought home 30 movies and 10 box sets of shows.
Our collection isn’t big, but it’s good for now. We still stream once in a while, but only have one service at a time (right now we’re watching most of the Apple TV+ catalog).
I think people are really craving ownership—I know I am. I’ve talked about this before. People are tired of buying digital movies and games, only to have them disappear. Sick of paying the ever-rising cost of streaming services, only to face licensing changes. Endeavors like Sloppy Discs, Saturn Video, and The Video Store MPLS are only just the start.
It’s really encouraging to see a growing interest not only in physical media and ownership, but also in third places, places to go that aren’t home or work. Libraries, parks, cafes, gathering spaces where we connect with our community. It’s never been more important.
Are you seeing a trend in video rentals in your area? What’s your favorite movie in your collection?