Blockbuster's problem was that it was indifferent to its users and it got lazy. They optimized for their short-term goals, not the long term relationship with t

Blockbuster's problem was that it was indifferent to its users and it got lazy. They optimized for their short-term goals, not the long term relationship with the people they needed most. Any user focused company stays busy trying to obsolete its current business with the next big thing, because that's what the user wants. It didn't kill itself on late fees or inventory myopia alone — it just painted the target on its back. If Blockbuster were genuinely interested in making their users happy toward the end, they could have bought Netflix for a cheap $50 million and moved forward. They didn't care, and their user hostile approaches to making cash were evidence this was true.