Redbox filed for bankruptcy protection on June 29th, 2024. This was due mostly to streaming, as people bought DVDs less and less. Redbox struggled to make ends meet and keep up a steady consumer base. As this moved down the chain, they realized they needed to liquidate the 24,000 rental DVD kiosks. This has left most retail stores in America with a bunch of heavy, expensive, and obstructing Redboxes all around the country and a mandate to remove them.

Many of these boxes cost thousands of dollars to remove and have special software and casing, making it hard to repurpose them. This has led to many stores paying random people to cheaply take the boxes and do what they wish with them. Some people have taken them for their DVDs, only damaging the boxes and breaking into them however they can. However, this is not easy since there are a lot of security measures in place to prevent that, and most people just sell them to junkyards for some money.

Yet still, some people are being even more creative with the screens, recoding the boxes to play video games on them, like Doom, or watch movies. Whatever the fate of these mystical red boxes, it is bittersweet to see their passing. They mark the world’s move from DVDs and discs to streaming and web services. While they may not be remembered as an amazing service, they will be known as a company that helped facilitate the transition to the world we have today and the many facets in which we consume our media, which are all mostly subscription-based as Redbox was.