this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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Today I Learned

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 120 points 2 months ago (7 children)

I remember it very well. You also needed a special player to play them, which only Circuit City sold. It was all cheaper than DVDs and DVD players, but obviously only if you watched it once or twice. And it was more expensive than renting it at Blockbuster.

Just a stupid idea.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 60 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Ironically the “viewable for 48 hours” is now the model for renting streamed movies using a special device. They were ahead of their time.

[–] Sesudesu@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

It’s not that ironic.

Renting used to exist, and it required you to have a dvd or vhs player. Renting on streaming doesn’t require a ‘special device.’ In fact it is the least special device needed by comparison, as you can watch on so many different devices.

48 hours was pretty common on new release rentals too, if not even less time.

Imagine if instead you needed to buy another tablet that only functioned as a video rental device. And nothing else could watch the rentals. That would be closer to reality.

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