Blockbuster stock is in the toilet. West Coast Video, Hollywood Video and other similar chains have been in and out of bankruptcy, and have closed down many stores, remaining chain and independent video store days are numbered.

Now that video can be delivered efficiently online, retail store costs and even sorting and shipping facility overhead are a recipe for a failed business. We’re still in the middle period - costs to mail Blu-Ray discs are arguably lower now than they are to deliver over broadband. But the costs of online content delivery continue to drop, codecs continue to improve and as more U.S. households sign up for higher-speed access the inconveniences related with downloading or streaming films in high quality continue to decrease.

So we’re not too far from an entirely digital content delivery ecosystem, though the electronics industry may have something to say about it and may throw up a roadblock or at least a speed bump before we get there.

It’s official. DSL Reports has confirmed that Comcast will officially implement a 250 GB cap on bandwidth for broadband subscribers beginning October 1.

This has been a long time coming, after the spotlight was shone on Comcast for their unorthadox network practices, and the FCC ruled against their policy of throttling P2P applications on their network, Comcast has finally taken steps toward challenging those who use their network to transfer massive levels of data.

This is a smart policy, in the vein of what was previously advocated by Google’s Vint Cerf, that will allow Comcast to manage the traffic on their network more efficiently.

UPDATE: Thanks to Vint for the clarification, this policy isn’t as smart as his idea:

“I advocated limiting RATES not limiting total bytes transferred. The aggregate transfer cap deals with averages while, as Tony Lauck has pointed out, the issue is instantaneous data rate congestion - too much being transferred at the same time. Different metrics and methods are needed to limit the maximum rate at which a user can accept or emit data.”

No word on the penalty when users go above the 250 GB threshold, though this type of tiered pricing seems preferable to the metered pricing proposed by companies like Time Warner.