In yesterday’s edition of I, Cringely, PBS writer Robert Cringley wrote that he thinks it makes sense for Apple to buy the floundering Blockbuster. His plan is relatively simple:

Take your Video-out iPod to Blockbuster, drop it in a kiosk dock then download from the local xServe your choice of 50,000 movies. You can rent the movie or buy it and you can even choose the resolution, which may or may not affect the final price. Take the iPod home, drop it in the dock attached to your TV and watch the movie. H.264 decoding takes place in the iPod in hardware.

That sounds like a very pleasant idea, except for one thing: The reason Blockbuster is losing money is because… wait for it… PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO LEAVE THEIR HOUSES.

Why leave your house, go to Blockbuster, and plug your iPod in when you can do one of the following:

Get Netflix and have the movie delivered to your house.
Wait two months and TiVo it.
Bittorrent.
Vongo

If Blockbuster really wants to save itself, they should make some deals with the major movie houses and have movies available for download off of their website in multiple formats. That way, they won’t have to tether themselves to one company (read: Apple).