Yeah there’s a lot of games I would’ve never played when I was a kid if it wasn’t for the video store renting out games. I had a second hand Mega Drive, one controller and two or three games of my own, not bought all at once. And I can say that I got a lot more out of renting games than feeding coins into an arcade machine at least. They even had games available for swap, so I could trade something I bought and regretted, or finished and got everything out of.

I also definitely wouldn’t have watched 90% of the movies I got to watch if it wasn’t for the video store.

I think like anything else it’s neutral, or a good or bad thing depending on what kind of predator is running it. Same as second hand stores. Renting out things that people need to survive sounds fucked. But renting out Sega games and whatever fantasy / sci-fi / horror movie caught my eye made part of my childhood.