Probably from pressure over Netflix and their own online service, Blockbuster has decided to stop charging late fees. Instead, you will be given a one week grace period, after which you will automatically buy the movie or video game.

To me, this indicates a shift in the rental market. Blockbuster knows that stores will become obsolete in the future, as content moves to a digital format. In reality, Netflix knows they aren't far behind - which is why they are trying to team with TiVo to deliver movies to your PVR. The days of physical media are limited.

The Blockbuster by us changed their late fees recently around here to be on a daily basis, so a new release was 1.79 per day it was late, and a seven day rental was 80 or 90 cents per day it was late, so we already saw a change in the late fees. Now, I don't have to worry about rushing over there if we forget. That will be nice, but I can see this getting a lot of abuse - now I could rent an XBox game for five days, and keep it for 12. I think we'll see less popular movies and games in the store as a result of this.

But that could be good too. That may be require them to buy more copies of movies and games, which means when they get older, I'll be able to get better deals buying the pre-viewed movies and pre-played games!