Blockbuster was owned by the Wayne Huizenga an interesting businessman and notorious South Florida character. Its hard to ignore the most important thing is h

Blockbuster was owned by the Wayne Huizenga an interesting businessman and notorious South Florida character. Its hard to ignore the most important thing is he sold Blockbuster to Viacom for $8.4B in 1994. Some say he had the foresight to see the writing on the wall, but I'm not sure that is the case and remember reading (if anyone can find it) about his preference for subscription based business models - Blockbuster late fees was the best they can come up with, which is nostalgic even to write, looking back they could have done a Seinfeld episode about the Blockbuster late fee) and so he was inclined to shed the business. If he had really seen the writing on the wall, he likely would have sold and/or just started the first subscription based movie rental by mail website (a la netflix).