How Netflix (and Blockbuster) Killed Blockbuster - Rick Newman (usnews.com)
When Blockbuster, the huge video-rental chain, set up a mail-delivery service in the summer of 2004, rival Netflix watched its stock price tumble. Netflix had invented the business in the late ’90s, and already survived one competitive scare after Wal-Mart began dabbling in DVD rentals. By 2004, Wal-Mart was backing out, having decided that video rentals weren’t part of its core business. But Blockbuster, the nation’s largest video-rental chain, was a much bigger threat. Video rentals were its entire business. Its very survival depended on conquering Netflix.