Monday, February 16, 2009

Redbox is great, except...

When I first heard of Redbox, I thought it was a great idea. For those that don't know how it works, you get new releases for $1/night out of a vending machine. There is a touch screen that you can select what movies are in the machine, swipe your credit or debit card and out spits your selection.

Here are my reasons though for it not being a great idea:

- Location of boxes. In my area they are starting to get more and more boxes with one a mile from my home, but it's still 2 mile round trip drive to do if I'm not passing by one during the day (at $0.50/mile expenses on my vehicle, that $1 rental grows up to be a $3 rental).

- Waiting in line to return. At the "old fashioned" video store, I can just drop my rental in a slot and they take care of the rest. With RedBox, I have to wait in line often behind someone that is renting. My trip to return a movie on Saturday night took 20 minutes from getting my shoes on to taking them off, with at least 5 minutes of it waiting for someone trying to find a movie that wasn't available.

- Limited selection. What they mainly have is new releases, which is expected when they're going for volume. The problem is that my wife and I watch maybe 10 new releases a year. I know the legal and physical limits, but that's why we have our Netflix membership still.

The first 2 reasons are the main reason I dislike using Redbox. I've used them the past week, but that is because I love my wife and know there were a couple of new movies that she was wanting to see and Netflix had a long wait for them. What are your reasons for not liking Redbox?

3 comments:

Denise Mall said...

I get what your saying - my greatest dislike for Redbox is the fact that you stand outside (at most) and freeze while you make your selection.

The second is that I seem to always go, when there are 'way' too helpful people going and they try to steer me towards movies that I don't want to see. Okay, just one guy in particular - I think he is flirting, but I'm old and married and it kind of creeps me out.

Times like cold and creepy make me wish for old indoor movie renting.

I'm cheap though. :-)

Denise Mall said...

Oops - scratch that, I'm frugal!

Betsey C. said...

I've never used Redbox, but it sounds like a hassle. Time is worth money, and if you have to spend time driving and standing in line, that's worth a lot. Leisure time is worth even more!

We use Netflix; we get 2 movies a month, one at a time. With tax, it's $5.39 a month. It's plenty for us, but for movie lovers it would probably be pretty sparse!