5 fatal flaws in Blockbuster's new $1 rental machines

When I was a kid, the first Blockbuster video opened near my school in Fort Lauderdale. And I don't mean the first Blockbuster in my neighborhood. I really mean the very first Blockbuster, ever.

The place was a revelation. Just a few years before, only the richest Americans could afford machines that played videotapes, so the appearance of a tidy supermarket of titles, many of which we'd only dreamed about seeing on UHF channels once in the distant past, was practically the definition of luxury. I'll never forget rushing there after school on new release day, or the soothing smell of all those gleaming aisles of new plastic clamshell cases. It was heaven.