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Movies Entertainment

Netflix Will End Its DVD-By-Mail Service After 25 Years (netflix.com) 77

Posted by BeauHD from the end-of-an-era dept.
Slashdot reader mpercy shares an email they received from Netflix announcing the shut down of its original business of delivering DVDs by mail: Just received an email from Netflix: "For 25 years, it's been our extraordinary privilege to mail movie nights to our members all across America. On September 29th, 2023, we will ship our final iconic red envelope. While times have changed since our first shipment in March 1998, our goal has remained the same: to provide you with access to the broadest collection of movies and shows possible, delivered directly to your door, with no due dates or late fees. As the DVD business continues to shrink, it's going to become increasingly difficult to achieve that goal. In our final season, we'll continue providing you the best service possible, all the way to the very last shipment." Here's an infographic the company shared in its post:
Netflix DVD Rental Service Stats
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Netflix Will End Its DVD-By-Mail Service After 25 Years More

Netflix Will End Its DVD-By-Mail Service After 25 Years

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  • I haven't gotten a dvd / blu-ray in forever.. in fact, I quit because while DVDs are a hardy thing that tolerates the abuse of countless careless renters, blu-ray isn't. It's very delicate, and nearly every blu-ray I got from Netflix would pause, skip or be outright unplayable.. on both a Sony mid-range blu-ray player, on an Oppo BD-103.

    As for Netflix the streamer, I barely partake anymore. I might just drop it. I spend most of my time in crunchyroll and hidive or watching from physical media.

    When a movi

    • Re:I'll miss it.. or not. I don't miss it right no (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @05:34PM (#63460188) Homepage Journal

      When a movie comes out that I really do like, I buy it in blu-ray. That way I see when I want, not when the streamer happens to have the license.

      And you don't have to worry about the streamer editing or otherwise censoring the media as well. We've seen plenty of that in the last few years. I buy any show I like and rip it to a harddrive plugged into the TV. Streaming is fine for something you watch once, or a few times over a short period of time, but not for things you want to go back to in the future. All the classic TV shows I ever watched on Netflix are now gone. As to the physical media, it was good at the time, but honestly I thought they stopped that years ago.

      • And you don't have to worry about the streamer editing or otherwise censoring the media as well.

        Also why I have dead-tree editions of what I like. Some of it in 1st-edition hardbacks.

        Already found a difference in the AppleTV (Itunes) purchased version in Band of Brothers vs. the version which aired on TV / Netflix - the Apple version has British-style text on the cards. Certain words are spelled the Brit way instead of the original.

        Similarly, the version of "The Challenge" I have from Apple is missing the scene where Toshiro Mifune's character literally guts two security guards coming out of an elev

  • I still use a VCR, you insensitive clod!

    • Who wants to bet that those that still have a DVD/BR disc in hand on September 29th, 2023 will be told "Thank you for renting from Netflix. Don't bother returning the DVD as we will no longer be renting these discs. Enjoy!"

      • I doubt that will be true. Netflix will be looking to sell their large collection of discs. They may offer subscribers the opportunity to buy them, launch a sale site, or sell the entire collection to another company.

  • I still get DVDs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mpercy ( 1085347 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @04:36PM (#63460072)

    I live way out in the boonies with connectivity that sometimes doesn't meet the USG definition of broadband, with a microwave tower on part of our property bouncing a signal off a water tower in town 11 miles away.

    So streaming is not always a useful thing to me. The DVD subscription catalog was many times larger than the streams and was not loaded up with Netflix originals instead of licensed movies and TV shows.

    I will be one source of entertainment down once this takes effect. Or sooner if I just go ahead and cut it now...probably won't get through the backlog in my queue anyway before the cutoff date.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teckla ( 630646 )
      Is Starlink an option for you?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      As usual, The Pirate Bay is the best user experience. Download at whatever rate you can, even from another location. Enjoy perfect local playback.

  • Only 40 million? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

    How is it possible that there were only ever 40 million unique subscribers (to the DVD service, presumably)? By the time they started doing streaming, Blockbuster was already on the ropes and failing financially, in no small part due to Netflix. Was there really only roughly 40% of the households in the country with a subscription (at some point)?

    I'd be interested in seeing their highest concurrent subscription count. I'd not be surprised if it's close to that 40 million figure.

  • but it stunk on ice for TV shows. The trouble was the disks would get lost or scratched and not replaced. So you'd get to disk 3 of a 6 disk show and be out of luck. About the 3rd or 4th time that happened I gave up, and I mostly watch TV shows.

  • It was practically useless anyway. DVDs over time get lost, never returned, broken, and they never replaced them. I have a few disks on my waiting list for over a decade at this point

    • I haven't had that trouble at all. A disc arrives broken about twice a year, true, but they have always been replaced promptly.

      The bigger problem is like the Expanse. Seasons 1-4 are available, 5 and 6 are not. So how did it end?

      Looks like I'm going to have to figure out BitTorrent. Sigh.

      • 1. Sign up for free trial
        2. Binge all content since last free trial
        3. Quit
        4. Wait for content to accumulate for next free trial (or pay the $10 fee or whatever for a month longer)
        5. No profit because you just melted your brain watching lots of TV

        • I have thought of that, but will they actually let you quit?

          I have bad memories of the battle to cancel Dish, and a similar one to cancel the landline.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Get a single use credit card, block the recurring payment if they don't make it easy to cancel.

          • I've never had to make a phone call to quit a streaming service. Its a few clicks to start/stop service. Can't say I've used all of them though, YMMV. I feel like someone has done the numbers on how frequently people often actually do quit when signing up and figured out the right price point to make it happen. Most people probably let the subscription sit once signing up even if they don't use it. That's the "beauty" of it for them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        The bigger problem is like the Expanse. Seasons 1-4 are available, 5 and 6 are not. So how did it end?

        Looks like I'm going to have to figure out BitTorrent. Sigh.

        That's a problem with the rise of streaming - a lot of TV shows stopped being put on discs. It was bad enough that TV shows stopped being put on Blu-Ray and the last few seasons were DVD only. Now a lot of shows simply stopped coming on disc.

        I think Season 5 is on DVDs through Amazon, but I'm not sure if Season 6 is.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          There are still plenty of people in the world for whom streaming services are not practical. Slow connectivity, low data caps or metering, or just geographic discrimination which causes the streaming services to either not work at all, or refuse to provide the content you want to watch.
          If paid DVDs from the original studio are not available, some enterprising folks will probably burn their own DVDs from a torrented source and sell them.

          Advertise content heavily to make people want it, then prevent people fr

    • The only physically broken DVD I've ever received from Netflix was, believe it or not, the Bruce Willis/Samuel L. Jackson movie "Unbreakable". I kid you not!

  • Still subscribing to DVDs... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@[ ]ata.net.eg ['ted' in gap]> on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @04:50PM (#63460106) Journal

    ...Because I hate how every production studio now has their own streaming service, and nobody shares anything with Netflix anymore.

    All I can stream on Netflix is Netflix content. But I can still get the DVDs for new releases or shows streaming on other platforms. Lately been watching Handmaid's Tale, because I don't subscribe to Hulu.

    I wish the studios would do a better job licensing their content with competitors. I hate our vertically-integrated world now. Four of the Big Five Studios has their own damn streaming channel. Universal has Hulu, Paramount has Paramount+, Disney has Disney+, and Warner Brothers (will have) WBTV. Only Columbia/Sony still licenses their content to Netflix & Disney rather than start their own platform.

    Guess I'll have to get my DVDs from the local library now.

    • Re:Still subscribing to DVDs... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @05:37PM (#63460196) Homepage Journal

      The studios don't want you to access their material unless you are paying them exclusively for it. They look at what Netflix was 5-10 years ago and want that, even though it doesn't exist any more, and never will again. They look at the streaming landscape and think, "How can we turn this into cable?"

    • People decry the streaming age, and think we are going back to cable. But let's pause for a moment...

      The way things used to work:

      Warner Bros Produces Friends
      Warner Bros sells Friends to NBC, who adds commercials
      NBC sells cable rights to Time-Warner, who charges more money

      The consumer is paying *TWO* middle-entities here who are providing zero value to the consumer.

      Nowadays, you buy the shows direct from Warner Bros, have no commercials, and no intermediary cable company. It is far more efficient for the con

      • You're measuring consumer efficiency in a way that's totally opaque to the consumer. What we notice is availability, format, and price. Is there any way in which those are more "efficient?"

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by brunes69 ( 86786 )

          I would argue strongly that all 3 of those are vastly improved.

          Availability - I can now consume my entertainment at any time on any device I want.

          Format - No commercials

          Price per hour of entertainment - Inflation-adjusted, overall price *as* gone down, despite much ballyhooing otherwise by some. Sure, if you want content *FROM EVERY SINGLE PRODUCER* you might be up to your past cable bill, but you would never have had access to even close to that much content with cable.

      • But very expensive compared to even Cable. When Netflix had rights and was paying a fair share back to Warner Bros, it was a very good deal for consumers. Today's streaming is a terrible model for consumers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        And there's no standards...
        With TV standards, you could be sure that any NTSC TV could receive any NTSC TV broadcasts, irrespective of who was broadcasting it.
        Same with DVD, hundreds of vendors providing DVD players and any movie would play on any player.

        Now you need a device that can run the streaming service's proprietary app, some will work on certain brands and models of TV or set top boxes, some will not. Some will work on older versions of android or ios, some will only work on the latest version. It'

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Octorian ( 14086 )

        Except you're now likely still paying all of those middlemen, and also need to separately pay for yet another streaming service on top of that.

        The cable company hasn't gone away. They often provide your internet access, and also your TV service for all the things that haven't yet made the jump to streaming services (or are easier said than done to actually get via streaming).

    • There is a lot more on Netflix than Netflix content. Unfortunately it's not nearly as large as when they had streaming rights to Starz and other big owners. That died when the content owners realized there was money to be made and preferred to have their own half baked service than to just license and get paid indirectly. Personally I like the idea of separating content creation from content delivery, but many streaming companies want to own it all vertically instead of partnering with someone.

  • I've been a subscriber since 2004, back when we lived in Columbus, OH. The service went with us from there to WA and now to PA where we live now. I've watched a lot of movies that aren't available on streaming. I'll definitely miss the red envelopes but it makes sense that it would end at some point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lenski ( 96498 )

      Agreed on all counts. The issue with all the streaming services has been mentioned multiple times but it bears repeating: We have interest in maybe one movie every other month from any given studio, we are mostly into "indies", and cannot justify paying every damn streaming service monthly for such infrequently used content.

      We are still in Columbus.

  • It's great for digging up classic movies as well as new releases/shows (as long as you don't mind waiting). Thanks to them I've seen a lot of obscure films that I might not have otherwise tried. After DVD shuts down then I'll treat Netflix like the other streaming services. Just cancel it when there's nothing in particular that I want to watch. The DVD service is what's kept me subscribed for almost 20 years. Only Amazon gives a reason to stay stick around thanks to Prime.
  • The reason I'll miss it is because there was plenty of content that was available on DVD that was never available through the streaming service. I suppose licensing issues were probably behind that. I ditched cable TV, where I was paying for many channels I had no interest in, for the Netflix DVDs, and then added streaming. That combination gave you excellent coverage for a decent price. Now the streaming market has become so fragmented you need to pay for at least half a dozen to get good coverage... a

  • Looks like they're still pretending blurays are a type of dvd.

  • It's shame they never offered any 4k blurays.

    • >"It's shame they never offered any 4k blurays."

      Was it?
      Unless sitting under 5 feet from a 80+" TV, it is likely that 98+% of people would not notice any difference between that and an upscaled 1080p bluray. Even on a "normal" sized TV (50"ish) at regular distance viewing (12 feet), I bet 80+% of people would not really notice much if any difference between 1080p and upscaled 480p.

      There would be no real interest by Netflix in a sub 1% market.

      • Its not quite that bad. But you are correct in that for many people with the distance they have in a room to the TV its not worth it. I have a living room setup with probably a "normal" 10-12 ft distance from the TV (55") and I have no clue if a stream is 4k or 1080. But I also have a "movie" room which many people who visit think is ridiculous because it's a 65" TV about 6-7 feet from the couch - mainly to have a better field of view - and there you can for sure tell, esp. with a bluray (4k streams are

        • As for the 480p- just remember that we are not "typical" people. Yes, I can certainly tell 480p from 1080p, even on a small TV at distance. Much harder at 720p upscaled to 1080p vs. native 1080p. But I will point out it matters on the comparisons if it is a good master (not grainy, higher bitrate, careful conversion) of a modern movie on 480p. Huge difference. Shockingly so, sometimes. Like you, a poor 480p, to me, is painful to watch.

          There is a rapidly diminishing return from 480 to 720 to 1080 to 4k

  • Sadness (Score:3)

    by Mass Overkiller ( 1999306 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @05:35PM (#63460190)
    Iâ(TM)ve had netflix dvd since 2004. Itâ(TM)s been my only netflix since then (never got the streaming option). Iâ(TM)ll be sad itâ(TM)s closing. Iâ(TM)ve seen hundreds of movies in DVD thanks to netflix.

  • Re: (Score:3)

    by kurkosdr ( 2378710 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @05:44PM (#63460200)
    Physical media are going away, and with them, first-sale doctrine rights. In the past, if you wanted to rent a movie to other people, you could just buy a copy and rent it out. Now, if you want to rent a movie to other people, you have to negotiate with the company owning the rights to "license" it, which means they can impose their terms and even change them on a whim.

  • And in other news, Amazon will be dcing its newstand service. You will no longer be able to get newspapers and magazines on Kindle

  • We just cancelled our DVD plan this past January (I'm a CMP - Certified Master Procrastinator). It was a wonderful service for many years... although the writing has been on the wall for probably the past decade. It's true that the DVD plan was still the only way one could (legally) watch certain movies... but, last time I checked, it had become true that more of the movies in my Netflix DVD queue were available for rent from Apple/Amazon/etc. than were immediately shippable from Netflix.

    But still, for a nu

  • ....with a single video occupying one thousand categorizes.

  • I was there at launch, and I'll stay to the end (Score:5, Informative)

    by stern ( 37545 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @07:18PM (#63460436) Homepage

    I've been a member of Netflix since their initial promo offer back in 1998(?). They let each member's queue hold 500 films, and mine has been pegged at that number forever; as quickly as we watch a movie, we come up with others we want to watch. The selection on Netflix discs is *much* wider than on any streaming service. With Netflix disc you can decide to watch every Winona Ryder movie, or every Elliott Gould movie, or every episode of a ten-year-old French crime drama. How do you do that with streaming, unless you subscribe to fifteen services?

    • Mod Parent Up - My mom has this and has an attachment, maybe even to an unhealthy level. But there is SOOO much available through their disk service that is not even available anywhere else. Much availability will be lost to the masses!

  • I'll Seriously Miss It (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rally2xs ( 1093023 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @11:19PM (#63460718)

    Have received a ton of stuff unavailable elsewhere. Just ordered "The Adventures of Superman" broadcast on TV in B&W from 1952 (age 5) to 1958, and always enjoyed. Hope I receive these before they got under. Lots and lots of stuff is just not going to be available at any price now, I think.

    OK, I see my example Superman series is indeed available from Amazon, but lots more $$$ than Netflix subscription. But anyway, I'm still going to miss getting those disks in the mail.

  • I still prefer to watch movies on Blu Ray or DVD, because the quality is visibly better than streaming. Redbox Blu Ray rentals are my preferred source, the selection is good enough. And those TV shows that are only on streaming get boring and lose their storyline quality too quickly, so they aren't really worth bothering with - sadly even the better shows like The Expanse eventually devolve in a sea of evermore far-fetched ideas (=writing material) and refuse to come to a good conclusion.

  • Should I start searching eBay for "found" lots of 100,000 used DVDs for sale, sans boxes, priced to sell at 49 cents a pound?

  • Well my rip it and ship it days are over. Ripping movies for decades. Both me and my friends. And then we copied each others hard drives. I ripped some 10 years ago I never watched yet. Oh well. I have about 60tb of movies now. Since they don't even make good movies anymore, I think I'm set for the rest of my boomer life.

  • Says when they launched, they had almost 1000 dvds, nearly every dvd in existance. How did the founders acquire the rights to every movie, to rent out? I just read about how video rental stores used to work and they'd pay ~$100 for a video cassette intended to be rented, then $20 a year later to be sold.

    • That was the great thing about physical dvds. You didn't need any rights. They bought it. They can pass around the physical dvd however they wanted to.

  • I still have well over 300 in my DVD Q...

    Hey Netflix, I'll pay you $1 to take over the DVD biz!

  • Does anyone know if https://www.gamefly.com/movies [gamefly.com] Or any service can do what Netflix dvd did?

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