If you had the $18-a-month plan, you could only download three movies at a time, and based on your plan, you would only be able to watch 18 hours of streaming content a month. There were just 1,000 movies to choose from, and the system worked a lot like the DVD-by-mail service. That happened in 2007, when Netflix launched its streaming business, which was not quite as slick as it is today. “At some point those lines would cross, and it would become more cost-efficient to stream a movie rather than to mail a video. “Back then, said that postage rates were going to keep going up and the internet was going to get twice as fast at half the price every 18 months,” Sarandos told Variety in 2018. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has recalled how Netflix founder Reed Hastings told him back in 1999 that he planned to take the business completely online as soon as the economics worked out. The fact of the matter is that Netflix has been planning to abandon DVDs since the 20th century. But it also highlights how many of its most loyal customers it’s leaving behind. ![]() That Netflix is now going to let some of those folks keep a dozen or so discs for good makes the company look generous. While the streaming wars have made it seem as though there’s more content online than anyone could ever watch or want, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Netflix’s DVD business still had huge appeal to people who lived in rural areas or who liked movies that were unlikely to show up on a streaming service. You might not think this is so exciting if you’re one of the more than 1 million subscribers to DVD.com, many of whom are surely sore about the demise of the mail-order service. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.įor more newsletters, check out our newsletters page. Think of them as party favors on your way out the door.īy submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. ![]() “Please enjoy your final shipments for as long as you like!” And on top of that, DVD.com subscribers can sign up for a surprise shipment of up to 10 extra discs to show up in their mailbox after the site shuts down. “We are not charging for any unreturned discs after 9/29,” the company explained in a tweet. This week, Netflix said that DVD.com subscribers can keep all the discs they had rented just before the company went out of business. But now is your chance to own a piece of it. (Fun fact: The very first red Netflix envelope contained Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice.) If you’ve never heard of DVD.com or you thought Netflix got out of the disc-shipping business years ago, that’s understandable. The company announced in April that it would send its last DVD by mail on September 29, a little over 25 years after it sent the very first one. Netflix is treating the end of the DVD era like a birthday party - or a funeral, depending on your point of view.
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