Netflix is transport its last DVD leases, marking the top of an period that helped make the corporate the streaming behemoth it’s in the present day. “Netflix will mail its last DVD on September 29, 2023,” the corporate stated in a submit on X yesterday. “However the crimson envelope stays an everlasting image of our love of leisure.”
Netflix announced in April this 12 months that it could shut down its DVD rental enterprise on September 29, saying the shrinking demand for bodily leases is making it “more and more tough” to supply the standard of service it desires. The corporate shipped its first disc (Beetlejuice) in 1998, and has since shipped 5.2 billion films in these crimson envelopes to greater than 40 million prospects.
DVD leases paved the way in which for Netflix to introduce streaming on-demand in 2007, and it shortly grew to develop into the corporate’s hottest providing by 2009. The remainder is historical past, as Netflix progressively expanded to provide its personal streaming content material and now counts over 238 million subscribers. In the meantime, DVD leases (which shifted to DVD.com) have progressively develop into a minor a part of Netflix. And whereas video purists nonetheless love DVDs and Blu-rays, gross sales worldwide dropped 19 p.c from 2021 to 2022 alone. In a single latest blow, Disney introduced that it was halting DVD and Blu-ray manufacturing in Australia.
Whereas it is sadly the top of an period, there’s one silver lining. This summer season, Netflix introduced that anybody who nonetheless has a rental will have the ability to hold their discs, and might even request as much as 10 extra films in order that the corporate can filter its inventory. “Please take pleasure in your last shipments for so long as you want,” the corporate posted on X.