By Lee Pfeiffer
There was a time when Blockbuster seemed to be King of the World in terms of dominating the home video rental market. The company became a dominant force back in the 1980s after mom and pop businesses developed and refined the concept of renting videos to consumers. (Remember when you had to pay an annual fee to the local video store in order to rent your favorite movies?) Blockbuster waited in the wings for small businessmen to iron out the kinks in the business, then swooped into neighborhoods and shut out the little guys. For years, consumers decided to "Make it a Blockbuster night", as the company's effective ad campaign promoted. However, in recent years, consumer habits have changed. It's often almost as cheap to buy a DVD as to rent it. Movie fanatics have libraries that are bursting through their walls and many can't even get to watching the ones they already own, let alone renting other movies. Most tragically for Blockbuster, the soaring popularity of downloading films has made it difficult for the company to maintain their "brick-and-mortar" neighborhood stores. Add to this toxic soup, the worst recession in memory - a time when additional funds are scraped together to pay for rent, mortgages and health care, not to rent the latest Adam Sandler comedy. Consequently, the company, which closed over 300 stores in America last year, plans to close an additional 500+ this year. They are not alone. Click here to read how the sinking economy is impacting other major chains