I spent my teen and young advlt years in them, so maybe that's why its bothering me so much. I used to love perusing all the movies on a regular basis at my local video stores. There's something about picking up the physical box a DVD (or Blu-Ray) comes in and reading the back. I also like the interaction with the staff and other customers sharing recommendations. I've found a lot of good movies I had never heard about this way. For some reason I can't quite find all the esoteric titles in Netflix - they're website just pushes you towards the obvious current Hollywood releases. I live just on the edge of town so my copper wire DSL is only 3 Mbps and I don't want Comcast (so basically streaming is out). Not to mention I have a really nice Oppo DVD player I bought back in 2009 that I enjoy using (it can save a specific location on a disc - most Blu-Ray can't do resume after powering off).

I know the market has changed, but it really has bothered me to see first Hollywood Video close, then the large independent in my town close and then the final nail in the video store coffin - the Blockbuster closed six months ago. Now there is nothing but those damned Redbox kiosks with their limited selection littering every convenience store parking lot. I would guess that about 30 jobs were lost between them all. I know, I sound like some old fart moaning about how all these rapid tech advances are inconveniencing me.

It just means cheap games.

Nah it's bothered me a lot as well. Some of my fondest memories as a kid was deciding with the entire family (or sleepover group) that we'd go rent a video, and it being this almost adventure to drive down, walk around among the videos, looking at the covers and titles, imagining what was in them, and picking some out among the candy and popcorn displays and demo reels playing. Then you'd bring it home and complete the night with it. It made movie watching an event, almost similar to going to the theater (still is an 'event' for me since I rarely go to the theater; I've probably been under ten or fifteen times my entire life).

It also made things fun when I was a teenager and would look around to find a certain section, then have to end up asking an attendant, "Do you know where the foreign section is?" "Do I know where the porm section is...?" as they looked down at a blushing and shy teenager. That was always fun.

It was sort of fun, going to a store, see what they got, and if i could afford it

Nowadays of digital distribution there's no chance involved at it, just few clicks and you can get almost anything. Still, i prefer it like that.

I miss this. Blockbuster never did this, but all the Mom and Pop Video stores would. They tended to be staffed by people who love movies and I could get recommendations from them.

I don't know if I miss getting in the car to drive down to the video store. I know the OP said that Netflix pushes people to the newest or more popular movies, but that is on the Streaming side. On the disk side, I can get obscure titles that I never had a hope of finding on VHS or DVD in the stores. I am a fan of movies by Ed Wood and other obscure directors and genres, and Netflix still has a good selection in that area.

I don't miss it with the more commercial stores like Blockbuster, and I don't miss it in DVD form.

But I do miss independent VHS stores. My brother used to frequent them for horror and advlt movies when he was a teenager and he would take me to rent or buy some and we would watch them. The VHS culture was irreplaceable for us.

Been a few years since I rented anything from the local 8 mile away http://www.vulcanvideo.com/catalog/catalog.cgi

Wow - what a selection!

The video store I frequented for about 15 years finally closed their doors a couple years ago. At first it kinda bothered me, but nowadays I've come to realize that I can get almost anything I want off the internet. No getting up off my butt and dragging it to the store to select a few movies. No need in rewinding the tape, then getting back up off my butt and driving to the store to return said movies. Nah, I don't really miss them that much anymore.

I still have some fond memories of them...except for that one part of the store nobody likes to be seen walking into. But they served their purpose, and I guess their time has come, much like video arcades of old. They served their purpose, and we've all got fond memories of them, but all things eventually come to an end.

I spent a lot of time at VHS rental places in my teens, and they are all gone now. Rather sad, as it was always interesting to walk around there and look and read about the stuff they had. I've built a rather large selection of DVDs and blu-rays for me though, so for me the physical stuff is here to stay

The worst thing about this it's that there are rarely any impulse watching anymore, the "oh, this might be good, let's give it a try" kind of thing. Instead I just buy stuff I know I like.

Seems like a nice place, they even have a bunch of swedish movies. I enjoyed http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0323998/ quite a lot, for example.