Netflix, Blockbuster and Redbox Google Search Traffic Compared from 2004 to Present Time

While the meteoric rise of Netflix isn’t so much of a surprise, the relative steadiness of Blockbuster surprised the hell out of me. While Blockbuster has surely lost droves of customers to its competitors and a considerable chunk of that search volume could be associated with unsatisfactory or negative queries (such as Blockbuster bankruptcy rumors), the big news here seems to be the huge expansion of interest in the movie rental and streaming world, rather than the lack of interest in Blockbuster.

Netflix has caused a huge comeback for the future of in-home entertainment and more people than ever are buying into the “if you want it now, you’ve got it now” mentality of Netflix Instant Streaming. Is there room for Blockbuster to make a comeback? We’ll never say never, but things aren’t looking very good for the once dominatrix of movie rentals. The addition of video games to the mail service and actual release day shipping was a good start, but they’ve got quite a ways to go. It’s hard to compete with a service with such an easy way to watch every Nic Cage movie ever made.