`` Be kind , please rewind , '' the signs used to say in video stores , urging customers to return their rented VHS tapes spooled back to the beginning . If only Blockbuster could rewind back to the 1990s . That was the time when the video chain was the colossus of the movie-rental business , with stores in seemingly every city shopping district and suburban strip mall in America . Visiting the store was a weekly rite for many people , who would show up on Friday evenings to check out the latest releases , navigating a crush of couples and families who had exactly the same idea -- only to find out that the last copy of `` Air Force One '' or `` The Lion King '' had already been snagged . That custom is now as gone as a world with three television networks , a UHF station 's late show and a Zenith Space Command . On Wednesday , DISH Network , which purchased Blockbuster in 2011 , announced it was closing the chain 's 300 remaining U.S.-based retail stores , as well as its distribution centers . `` Consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment , '' said DISH president and CEO Joseph P. Clayton in the press release about the closures . His statement echoes many from recent years about the migration of entertainment from physical objects -- CDs , DVDs , books , games -- to bits , bytes and pixels available on various screens and portable devices . Blockbuster will continue its Blockbuster @ Home brand to DISH customers , as well as its Blockbuster On Demand streaming service . And an additional 50 Blockbuster stores not owned by DISH will remain open for the time being . Reaction : Jokes and shrugs . The action was long expected . Blockbuster had been closing stores for years , as is obvious from the yawning vacancies still present in many of those very same strip malls . The chain was done in by Netflix , streaming video and a world of Internet options . Reaction from that Internet was , of course , swift and pithy . Several posts on Twitter made fun of the store 's late fees -- the bane of people who could n't get their rental back in the standard 48 hours -- and the VHS tapes that made Blockbuster 's name . `` I knew this day would come . I 'm mere months away from owning a VHS copy of The Mighty Ducks without paying my late fees to Blockbuster , '' wrote Brian Essbe . `` Yes ! All the Blockbuster Video Stores are closing ! That means they 'll never get back that VHS tape of Vampire In Brooklyn . I won ! '' added actor and comedian Paul Scheer . Other commenters just shrugged . Many said they did n't even realize Blockbuster had any stores left . In a headline , The New York Times put it best : `` Internet Kills the Video Store . '' But Dan Herbert , author of the forthcoming book `` Videoland '' and a film professor at the University of Michigan , wants to praise Blockbuster , not bury it . The stores were clean and family-friendly , with wider aisles and a bigger emphasis on movie selection than the mom-and-pops that dotted the landscape in the 1980s , he said . `` They really standardized video rental in general , '' Herbert said . As with many franchises , at its height Blockbuster often came in for criticism . The chain put many mom-and-pop stores out of business . Befitting its name , it generally catered to a blockbuster mentality : Hit releases filled shelves by the dozens , but independent and foreign-language films could be hard to come by . The stores would n't carry NC-17 films at all . And then there was the Blockbuster clerk , easily recognized in a blue knit shirt , who was often depicted as either clueless or snotty , depending on how frustrated you were on those crowded Friday nights . But Herbert , a former video clerk himself -- though not at Blockbuster -- points out that Blockbuster was successful for a reason . It had more variety than many video stores : Blockbuster stores were required to have a minimum of 7,000 movies and averaged 10,000 , more than many of its competitors , he said . By doing so , it opened up more of America to more movies ( and , later , TV show collections ) . Even though Blockbuster itself primarily stuck to cities and suburbs , it became a model for other chains that opened stores in small towns . Playing catch-up . If people compared Blockbuster to McDonald 's , that was n't necessarily a knock , said Herbert . `` They self-consciously modeled themselves on McDonald 's , and at various points hired members of McDonald 's upper management , '' he said . But over the last decade , business took one hit after another . In a September article , The Billfold 's Christopher Tucker described how independent video stores were put out of business . The same trends affected Blockbuster . First there were DVDs , which were relatively inexpensive and intended for purchase , especially compared to the VHS titles that cost stores up to $ 100 a pop . With the advent of broadband , people started downloading movies and shows -- not always legally . Netflix and Redbox used the slim size of DVDs to their advantage . And finally , `` Hulu was launched , and your average Joe and Josephine were introduced to Cloud Media , '' Tucker said . Even Blockbuster 's late fees came back to bite the chain in an unlikely way . In 1997 , a man named Reed Hastings returned a late copy of `` Apollo 13 '' to his local Blockbuster . He was assessed a $ 40 fee . Two years later , he founded Netflix . Blockbuster was caught flat-footed by many of these changes . It could have purchased Netflix for $ 50 million in 2000 , but passed . As Netflix rose , Blockbuster 's attempts to compete on Netflix 's terms -- especially through the mail -- foundered . It also tried to compete with Redbox using standalone kiosks . That did n't work , either . By the time Blockbuster was sold to DISH in 2011 , it was down to 1,700 stores , more than 7,000 fewer than its peak just seven years earlier . People had long since started devoting their Friday nights to streaming and downloading at home -- and if they were heading out , it was n't to a Blockbuster . The Onion , of course , nailed it . In a 2008 video headlined `` Historic 'Blockbuster ' Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past , '' the satiric site showcased a Michigan venue that `` aims to transport visitors to a time before the Internet . '' Like a version of Colonial Williamsburg , it had actors playing clerks and customers who described how the rental process worked . Onlookers watched the performance , stunned . `` It 's really amazing that people had to go through so much just to get a movie , '' says a visitor in the skit .
Blockbuster climbed high in Wednesday on the videotape-rental business . The company announced the 1990s it would close its remaining Netflix stores . Once-dominant chain was done in by DVDs , streaming , Internet . But when Blockbuster was at peak , nights visits were an American rite .