According to Business Wire, the DISH Network announced that its subsidiary, Blockbuster L.L.C., will end its retail and by-mail DVD rentals by early January 2014. The company will close its approximately 300 remaining US-based retail stores, as well as its distribution centers. Blockbuster @Home service (for DISH customers) its streaming service, Blockbuster On Demand, will continue to operate.

As pointed out in an article on Gizmodo, it is a shame that video stores have closed, even if most Americans now do not use them. Slow internet speeds in much of the country and the unavailability of many titles that were easily found in rental shops proved that video rental stores still served a purpose:

But that doesn’t mean that video stores have outlived their usefulness—or, especially, that streaming is anywhere near ready to replace it… What Blockbuster offered — and what a Redbox kiosk’s few dozen offerings can’t — is choice. Aisle upon aisle of curated choice, of both recent hits and classic films. Your digital options have improved vastly in the past couple of years, but there are still significant blind spots. It’s true that no physical store could contain the thousands of thousands of titles that fill the virtual shelves of iTunes and Amazon. But it’s also true that many of those titles are junk, and many must-see movies aren’t among them.