[ghaff]

Mostly rose-colored glasses nostalgia probably. Being able to rent a movie whenever[0] you wanted to and watch it at home was extremely transformative in a way that someone who grew up with streaming (not you I realize) would find difficult to appreciate. A lot of movies weren't even purchasable as a practical matter (priced to rent) at the time.

[0] Well, if they had it and it was in stock.

[bombcar]

They'd even rent VCRs and DVD players, which was a big deal early on when they were multiple hundreds of dollars.

[amyjess]

They'd rent video game consoles too.

Speaking of which, I miss video game rentals. I spent so much time as akid at Blockbuster looking for games to rent. Even now, I'd like to be able to play with a game for a few days before committing to paying for the whole game.

(and of course, I say this with a hundred unplayed games in my Steam library...)

[bombcar]

https://www.gamefly.com exists but I feel it's days are numbered, what with console makers doing everything they can to tie games to accounts tied to a given console ...

[TedDoesntTalk]

Before video rental stores, we rented a film projector at the public library and movies on reel-to-reel film. Small selection of old stuff like Marx Brothers, Three Stooges, etc.