End of an era! Netflix Finally Announces to Discontinue its DVD Rental Service

After more than 20 years, the streaming giant Netflix has announced it would formally discontinue its DVD rental service. In a tweet, Netflix stated that it would send out its final red envelope on September 29, 2023. “For 25 years, it has been a great joy and honor to host movie nights for our lovely members.”

History of Netflix as a DVD rental service:

Netflix has been in operation since 1998 as a business that allowed customers to rent movies over the mail. After renting via email, the DVDs would come in a red envelope. This was long before the emergence of streaming. Netflix’s streaming service didn’t begin until 2007.

Unbelievably, Netflix has continued to rent DVDs throughout this time, although through DVD.com rather than the main Netflix website. As of 2019, there were apparently more than two million members of the DVD service. Netflix notoriously declared intentions to split off its DVD business as Qwikster in 2011, but the decision was later reversed due to criticism.

“We’ve made the difficult decision to wind down the service,” according to Netflix on its DVD.com website, as “the DVD business continues to shrink.” Until the end of September, discs will be mailed, and refunds can be made through the end of October. The decision was made during a difficult year for Netflix, which had its first subscriber loss in more than ten years in 2022. The company said that it attracted fewer subscribers than experts had predicted.

Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, thanked “everyone who ever added a DVD to their queue or waited by the mailbox for a red envelope to arrive,” saying that “those iconic red envelopes changed the way people watched shows and movies at home—and they paved the way for the shift to streaming.”

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