I don't think that social influence critical masses were really a factor here. Blockbuster was brick and mortar, and 'on demand from home at $10 a month' is go

I don't think that social influence critical masses were really a factor here. Blockbuster was brick and mortar, and 'on demand from home at $10 a month' is going to kill that business on the basic fundamentals. There's no special science here. Blockbuster executives were fools - not so much to 'not see it coming' (few did) - but to not react when the writing was on the wall. Video streaming might be hard but it's not rocket Science, and a lot of people still wanted to rent videos. Using the massive installed base, stores, and gazillions of customers to launch an 'on demand' service that was 'pretty good' might have snuffed Netflix. After all - Netflix had to make the switch from DVDs. I worked at BlackBerry and saw kind of the same thing - sitting on the Titanic watching the iceberg get closer ... not at all alone in my concern, however the large ship was unable to change course. Especially as Netflix was just getting into streaming, and however we can point fingers, the fact remains that Blockbuster had all the opportunity and advantage, it was squandered.