Erol's video for me in the Washington D.C. area, early 80's. I got friendly with the guy and girl who worked there and they kept the new releases for me under the counter. I didn't have to circle the return bin like the other vultures

21 years ago I worked in a store called the Videopoint in my home town in Germany and it was a pretty weird time. Our 50-year-old-boss had recently came out to be gay, left his wife and kid, who lived in the apartment above the store, moved in with his much younger boyfriend, who worked in the store and made the decision to make up for lost time, which was understandable. He then spent a crazy amount of money on his new apartment, traveling, gifts for his daughter, just everything that brought him joy. The problem being, he didn't earn enough money, so he didn't purchause new movies for the store, which led to customers leaving, which led to earning even less. Payments for the employees didn't come on time, so most of us left. One of my friends stayed on, until one day at the end of his shift, the boss's boyfriend didn't show for his shift. He called them and they told him, they were on a last minute trip to Ibiza and that he should stay on for the whole weekend. He then closed up the store, on a friday night (!) and never returned the key.
Shortly after that the store was closed for good.

One thing I don’t miss is not being able to get a new release. There were many movies I rented just because they were new and I happened to be in the store right when they were being returned and put back out, figuring I should take advantage of the situation.

That’s been a big advantage with digital rentals- but not knowing how they actually work I’ve always wondered if servers have ever crashed when too many people are watching the same movie at the same time. Say a big movie gets put on and a million or more people rent it right away?

^ I had that thought when I watched Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas night. I didn’t have any issues at all though (although, I did hear the the 4K version was having problems, not sure if it was too many people trying to watch or some other reason).