Where I am at the moment, there is less than an hour until the end of rentals at Blockbuster Canada. It’s not easy for me to put aside my anger and look at the bigger picture. Still, I’d like to share a few thoughts about what it has meant, and will mean going forward.

For many years now, Blockbuster Canada has been the go-to solution for movie and game rentals. Sure, they pushed the independent, mom & pop video stores out of business. Just like Loblaws pushed the neighborhood grocer out of business and Walmart allegedly pushed every other retailer out of business. The fact is, the people who’ve been coming into my store for the past week haven’t been saying “I told you so.”. Mostly, they’ve been saying, “I’ll miss you, the store, the staff and and the movies.”

For many of them, Blockbuster has been more than a place to get movies. You can get movies from a huge range of sources. But we were never a movie business, we are a service business. That’s what kept putting feet on our floor every day and put money in the bank. This isn’t just my opinion, it’s the opinion everyone who’s first question isn’t about their rental options moving forward. It’s the opinion of every person who has asked if my staff, myself and our familiies will be okay. Not everyone shares this opinion, but enough do. I know that everything I did was not in vain. Every person who’s eyes mist up when we say “See ya around.”, they are the validation of what we have built.

So, the media misrepresents the causes of our closure. They say we couldn’t compete with the new digital world, and they’re full of sh*t. But that’s their job. It seems a lot of the alleged journalists writing about the demise of Blockbuster Canada are frustrated fiction writers. That’s the most charitable excuse I can find for the substitution of opinion for observation and fallacy for fact. The truth is, if you or I did our jobs that badly, we’d be fired. Now that I’m going to have all this time on my hands, maybe I should go to journaliism school. Nah, too muich self respect for that.

Moving forward, we come to the most popular question at Blockbuster. “Where a I going to get my movies?” I’ve got a better question. Where an I going to get my mortgage from. Movies are a luxury, but a mortgage, utilities, food etc, not so much. There isn’t going to be another business like Blockbuster. It was a product of it’s time and that time is not likely to come around again. There are a couple of regional players left, but movies rentals are sidelines for them. Sadly, that’s how they treat their rental customers, like an afterthought. Or a potential market for their main product lines. We were the biggest player in the video rental business. Some people hated us for being a big, corporate behemoth. They aren’t the ones who have stopped me in the grocery store to tell me how much they will miss me. Blockbuster Canada may have been a corporation, but they were the most people friendly, customer driven company I have ever worked for. I can’t see how removing that influence from the marketplace is going to be an improvement. Any time you reduce the range of options for the consumer, it rarely works out in their favour.

Having said all that, the time is almost upon me. It is nearly five, and that means the ending of an era in Canada. Some will view this as a positive thing, and others won’t. For myself, I think I’ve made my position abundantly clear. Blockbuster Canada isn’t dying because we failed to thrive in the face of emerging technologies. We are dying because people who couldn’t manage their own company were allowed to destroy ours also. To every person who worked hard to make Blockbuster Canada a success: Congratulations on your victory. To all the fine people with whom I have had the privilege of working for the past four and a half years: Thank you for a great ride. I wish all of you every possible success in your lives. May you be blessed with health, happiness and a long life to enjoy both.

Time ladies. Time gentlemen. The rental business will now be closing for the duration. Thank you, it’s been lovely.

Cheers, Winston