Redbox, the company that rents DVDs out of automated kiosks for $1 per night,
has been bought for up to $176 million by its biggest investor, Coinstar. It was hard to dislike Redbox: the company was having a lot of success in a space where other companies hadn't, by creating a convenient and easy to use service that delivered at a great price. Plus, anything that gets Hollywood's knickers in an
enormous twist generally is pretty good. Universal Studios, in particular, tried to hamper Redbox through
threats leading to lawsuits (
update : clarified that Redbox filed the lawsuit... in response to a threat from Universal), perhaps hoping to kill the company off before launching rental kiosks
of its own . But rather than try to destroy Redbox, Hollywood (and plenty of other people) should learn from it: the way to success isn't by putting all sorts of obstacles in the way of your customers' happiness, it's by providing them a service they want, delivered in an easy way, with a lot of value.
