There is a great visualisation of Blockbuster’s store count across the United States over the 33 years between 1986 and 2019.
Their explosive growth in the second half of the nineties, and their continued dominance until the mid-2000s is impressive. And this was only their US stores!
At the height of Blockbuster’s reign, no one predicted the rise of Netflix and gang. However, as the monthly payments on our credit card statements attest, we were all willing to ditch driving to a store to hire a VHS or DVD.
I love how visualisations like this can depict the growth and decline. In the space of a minute, we can see how even the most dominant power in an industry is vulnerable to innovation and disruption.