There was a story today about how Blockbuster will be closing upwards of 1,000 locations by the end of 2010. My question is “Why wait”? We decided years ago after being treated poorly by Blockbuster to stop giving them our money. Between Redbox, Netflix, and various on demand options – we decided that Blockbuster didn’t deserve us as customers.

It’s bad enough that technology has turned against Blockbuster, but what they failed to do was create loyalists out of their customers. I know I definitely felt Blockbuster was a necessary evil and as soon as I had the chance to be rid of them, I was. If you develop a brand, a service, a product that evolves into a relationship that your customer values, then those customers will follow you onto your next venture.

Blockbuster’s other problem is that it didn’t innovate it’s service soon enough. Netflix has 10 times as many users, connects through set-top boxes and Xbox, and streams to PCs and Macs. Meanwhile Blockbuster is stuck in the 80’s. When they finally go under it will be met by “ho-hum” from me.