Redbox , but that doesn’t mean it can’t (sorta) live on in your living room. Redbox’s with . It also left over 24,000 of its iconic red machines at various retail locations, .
The machines are heavy, cumbersome and difficult to dispose of, with a former RedBox executive suggesting it costs $500 to remove one of the kiosks. This is compounded by the fact that some of the machines are actually embedded in concrete. The retailers plan on salvaging them for scrap, at a loss, which has led collectors to take the initiative to scoop some up before they hit the scrap heap.
Jacob Helton, a 19-year-old from North Carolina, picked one up from a drugstore because he “felt like Redbox is important in the history of American media.” He went on to make the point that “its collapse marks the end of the video rental era.” Now he has a giant DVD-renting machine in his garage.
Now, before you roll up to a local Walgreens and ask about the dilapidated Redbox machine sitting outside, there are some caveats. First of all, these things are heavy and extremely difficult to transport. As mentioned above, some are even dipped in concrete.
Also, these machines suck up massive amounts of energy during use. Walgreens told a judge that it costs the company $184,000 each month to power 5,400 kiosks. That breaks down to around $35 per month for a single machine. They also have to be regularly maintained. However, if you do have a large DVD collection, each machine can hold around 500 of them. You can pretend to rent them out to friends and family and, well, that’s about it.
Redbox was on top of the world just ten years ago, boasting of nearly $2 billion in yearly revenue and installing over 43,000 kiosks across the US and Canada. It managed to hang on a bit longer than Blockbuster, but now it’s gone forever.
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