Let me begin by saying that I agree with you about Blockbuster. Blockbuster sucks. I would say that they suck as much as RedBox, only for different reasons which I won’t get into. Suffice it to say, Blockbuster’s bricks-and-mortar business model is probably unsustainable in the long-run.

Regarding RedBox, I totally understand why they want to nickel-and-dime us. I’m sure nickel-and-diming us makes them a lot of money. I would venture to guess that RedBox’s business model depends on folks who rent a dvd and then forget to return it for a couple of days. But that is exactly the problem I have with the model – it preys on the bad habits of Americans. I lump it right in there with cigarettes, soda-pop, and video games.

Also, when I do what I always do and return the RedBox DVD late, I am left with a bad taste in my mouth that leaves me wanting to restart my Netflix membership. And it really is Netflix and other online distributors of movies, not bricks-and-mortar Blockbuster stores, that are the long-term competitors of RedBox.

And I think you are absolutely right about discussing web-design pricing upfront with clients – saved me a lot of time. Plus, it also pushed me in the direction of designing sites that customers can tweak and update themselves.

I believe it may be time to get rid of this old “no comments” standard of website interaction, particularly on content-specific pages (i.e. sub-pages).

Is there still merit in limiting comments on main landing pages, though? For example, in what ways might the U of M benefit by allowing (or not allowing) comments on http://www.umn.edu?

Allowing comments increases overhead for content managers, but it also increases interaction, decreases bounce rates, and gives visitors a better link to finding information/answers – isn’t that the whole goal of websites?

I hope the people you worked with here were helpful and informative. I used to work in the sales department here, so that’s where my insight came from.