I Sell Out To Corporate America

I've been with my video service, GreenCine, for a long time. When I first decided to sign up for an online video service, I went with GreenCine because, at the time, they had the largest library out there. (They still do, actually, as well as thousands of video-on-demand titles. They even have a sister site which offers nothing but porn.) They were a nice little indie business that carried all of the hard-to-find titles I was looking for.

But, with all of their perks, they have three big negatives that always raised doubt: 1) they're more expensive than everyone else; 2) shipping is about a five day turnaround (they ship everything from San Francisco); and 3) they only seem to carry about one copy of everything, which is bad if you want a new release. And, seeing as how, on a good month, I can turnaround about 20 movies, I thought maybe I could do better.

So, I made a change.

Every time I go into Blockbuster, I'm assaulted with their Total Access video service. Getting that much exposure, I decided to give them a try. And I made a good choice.

Every single obscure movie I could think of is carried by Blockbuster, with immediate availability, even new releases, of which I'm sure they have hundreds of copies. If you want something that comes in a set, they send them in order automatically. If a movie is currently in theatres, you can reserve it in your queue, and is added once it comes to video. And, should I choose to, one day, upgrade to HD video, Total Access offers both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. In a five day period, I got five movies; not bad for a three-out plan. And, it's cheap.

But, this is all pretty standard shit. Where Blockbuster really turns into a Netflix buster is with its stores. Instead of mailing the movies back, if you return them to a Blockbuster store, they give you a free rental on the spot, one for each one you return. PLUS, they scan the movie you just returned, so the next movie in your queue will ship right away. PLUS, every month, they give you a free coupon for any movie or game in the store, which, in light of recent developments, is extremely cool.

I thought I was pretty cool not to have turned to the Netflix Darkside. Turns out, I just needed a better offer.

I'm such a sellout.