Perhaps the same way that Blockbuster CEO, Jim Keyes, was baffled by the success of Netflix, by drinking his own bathwater (hubris and willful blindness to alternative ideas).

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=280425

It certainly seems that way... in the long run. In the beginning, in 1997, Netflix was a company that sent DVDs by mail. Fast forward, they're an internet video-on-demand company. The writing was on the wall for Blockbuster way back in 1997 but it took over a decade for their model to go bust. The not-so-well known fact is that Blockbuster was already losing money and going bankrupt even before Netflix finished them off.

Similarly, Hertz has declared bankruptcy and the other car rental companies are not far behind. Uber and Lyft are certainly not the cause of their demise in the same way that 1997-era Netflix couldn't be blamed for Blockbuster's demise. But the writing was on the wall, and the writing is certainly on the wall here.

This comment thread on HN from 2008 is quite an interesting read if you see some of the comments denying Blockbuster's precarious position: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=280425