Comment on You can only bring back one. Which do you choose?
Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 11 hours agoYou wouldn’t say that about video rental if you’ve been to Scarecrow Video in Seattle. They go way beyond what any modern streamer can do. It’s an institution, and one of the only things I actually miss about the states.
paultimate14@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Please enlighten me then- what does Scarecrow Video do that makes them special? From a quick Internet search it looks like they re-organized into a non-profit, got officially recognized as a museum by the state, have relied on Kickstarter campaigns to stay running, and seem to still be struggling to keep the lights on. So just from skimming their website it seems like less of a business and more of a preserved piece of nostalgia and novelty.
Don’t get me wrong- I’m very much in favor of physical media and media preservation. Today’s streaming and digital “purchase” landscape has a ton of issues. I just think the solution to that is public libraries, and it looks like Scarecrow is trying to be a hybrid of a library, museum, and business with the business part failing.
Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I don’t see how you can be a fan of physical media and still fail to see see what’s special about a community-supported video museum with a huge emphasis on physical media preservation.
Now, is it the ideal solution? Maybe, actually - imagine if the state ran it? They’d refuse to carry certain things. Stuff could disappear if the wrong type of people got into public office. As it stands, they have a huge selection of R-rated, NC-17, and unrated media. They have every genre of film, stuff you simply cannot license anymore, rare and otherwise impossible to source media, and they do it with style.
It may not work as a business model anymore, and humanity’s videography is not sanitary enough for it to work as a fully public institution - I think they’ve struck upon a perfectly workable (if inelegant) middle ground.