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The perfect virtual video store isn’t Netflix. It’s DVD.com (2020)
- hulitu 5y ago" Netflix’s DVD.com represents the dream of the ultimate independent video store, one that has declined steadily over time; Variety predicted the service may be shutting its doors by 2022 at the current rate of subscriber loss" Well, i went to dvd.com hopeing to find a DVD store. Instead i found an offline version of Netflix when they send you a DVD for 2 weeks (no talk about quality. MPEG1 ?) and if you want to see another one you have to send it back. So, good luck Netflix finding customers. I want to buy the DVD not to rent a questionable, so called DVD (what is the format of the movies? does it have subtitles ? which DVD region ? - no information).
- jfengel 5y agoIt's all just rentals, not purchases. (That's what "video store" meant in the 80s, like Blockbuster -- they would also sell things, just because they could, but the rentals were the main business.) Originally that's all Netflix was. The rentals are actually as long as you want, not just two weeks. (That was one of their differentiators from Blockbuster, which charged you by the day.) The web site usually lists region and other info. Originally these were just the same consumer DVDs that you would buy in the store, though they gradually worked out deals with some studios to produce discs without the extras, presumably for a discount. (There were stories of Netflix employees buying out Walmart's entire supply when the studio refused to sell them the discs for rental.) They used to have an amazing back catalog for film buffs, and the business was huge. I'm still a subscriber because it's got a lot of stuff that's not on any other streaming service, or on ones that I don't have. It's gone way downhill, but it was way cool Back In The Day.