Netflix Will End DVD-By-Mail Service After 25 Years
Netflix will end DVD-by-mail service, which was the service that led up to its popular streaming service. The service, which still sends movies and TV shows in the famous red-and-white envelopes, will send out its last discs on September 29.
James K.Apr 20, 202354 Shares1312 Views
Netflix will end DVD-by-mail service, which was the service that led up to its popular streaming service. The service, which still sends movies and TV shows in the famous red-and-white envelopes, will send out its last discs on September 29. Last year, the DVD service made $145.7 million, but the number of subscribers has been going down over the years.
Many people still pay for the service so they can find rare movies that aren't available on video streaming. The DVD-by-mail service was started by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings in 1998. They knew from the start that it would be replaced by better technology.
Netflix announces end to its DVD service after 25 years
Netflix is about to end its DVD-by-mail rental service, which paved the way for its groundbreaking video streaming service. This will be the end of an era that began 25 years ago, when sending discs through the mail was a new idea. The DVD service will send out its last discs on September 29. It still sends out movies and TV shows in the red-and-white envelopes that used to be Netflix's logo.
Netflix had 232.5 million worldwide video streaming subscribers at the end of March, but it stopped saying how many people still pay for DVD-by-mail delivery years ago as that part of its business steadily shrank. Last year, the DVD service made $145.7 million, which, based on the average prices paid by customers, means that between 1.1 million and 1.3 million people signed up for the service.
Over the past year, Netflix's video streaming service has been growing less quickly, which has led the company to focus more on making more money. This may have also played a role in the decision to shut down a business that was losing money. But the DVD service used to bring in the most money for Netflix.
Before 2011, when Netflix split its DVD-by-mail service from its video streaming service, it had more than 16 million customers. But that number has steadily gone down, and it became clear that the service would eventually end when the idea of waiting for the U.S. Postal Service to bring entertainment became laughably old-fashioned.
Even people who are still loyal to the DVD service could see the end coming when they saw that the library, which used to have more than 100,000 titles, was getting smaller. Some customers have also said that they had to wait longer for their DVDs to arrive after Netflix shut down dozens of DVD distribution centers to focus on streaming.
Netflix changed the name of its rental service to DVD.com. This name was chosen because Hastings' idea to call it Qwikster was laughed at by most people. The DVD service has been run out of an unremarkable office in Fremont, California, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Netflix's fancy campus in Los Gatos, California.
Netflix Inc. (NFLX.O) said in a blog post on Tuesday that Netflix will end DVD-by-mail service, which it started about 25 years ago. The company said that its DVD rental business has been getting smaller and that it won't be able to keep giving good service. On September 29, Netflix will send out the last discs.
When the first DVD player went on sale in the U.S. in 1997, it was a calculated risk that the consumer would like it. Randolph says that when the service began in 1998, it had less than 1,000 titles.