17 ms·

Netflix will end its DVD service after 25 years

356 points by jbegley 4y ago

captaintobs 4y ago
It's such a funny story that Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix for $50 million.
- haolez 4y ago
  This could also have led to a bad ending. They could have killed what would make Netflix great and successful.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    > They could have killed what would make Netflix great and successful You mean like Netflix is doing now?
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Yes but without making all those tech folks rich first. (not hating, get rich if you can)
    - isk517 4y ago
      Yeah, but it's taken them the better part of a decade to do that. If they had been bought by Blockbuster they would have had access to people with the know-how and experience necessary to destroy a successful business quicker and more efficiently.
    - dnissley 4y ago
      Yes, but without the cambrian explosion of content that netflix footed the bill for over so many years
      - echelon 4y ago
        Netflix did not create a Cambrian explosion of video content. That would be YouTube and TikTok. The Cambrian explosion of cinema is still waiting to happen, but generative AI is poised to deliver on that sooner or later.
        Clamchop 4y ago
        I think if we constrain it to scripted television (and a fair number of movies now, too), they did. House of Cards was a big deal for being a streaming-first big-budget TV show. That's commonplace now. That wasn't that long ago. Since then, all of the major players have joined the table, sunk audacious sums of money into developing new projects, and there's more high-end TV made in a year than I can watch. Cue the flip "but none of it is any good" comments but nevertheless, Netflix blazed that trail.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
lancesells 4y ago
This sounds like a business opportunity for someone.
- overcast 4y ago
  Yeh, Redbox.
  - pavon 4y ago
    Not the same. Redbox is a good Blockbuster replacement in that they have a good selection of recent hits, but not much else. What made Netflix magical was that it had a huge back catalog - larger than any rental store or library I have ever used.
- jfengel 4y ago
  It's a niche, but I don't know how profitable it is. They pay postage both ways, which must cost them a significant fraction of a dollar. It doesn't take all that many disks per month to eat their profit margin. And it all seems pretty hard on the disks. I've had a few disks arrive broken, including one just recently. I know that sometimes they have studio agreements to burn their own custom disks, but sometimes they're just paying full retail price. Netflix got rid of much of its back catalog of cinephile movies a long time ago. I suspect that they just stopped replacing them when the physical disk broke. I don't know how big the market is for people who want obscure movies; I'm sure it's not zero, but it's probably not enormous.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    It's a big deal for me. There's very little on Netflix streaming that interests me, but I've got a DVD queue of over 400 great films.
    - jfengel 4y ago
      That's what Netflix's niche should have been. They can own one copy of every movie. I gather that they used to have the greatest library in the world, and have gradually let it diminish to a kind of glorified Redbox. I discovered that I'm just not a cinephile. I would love to love old, great, less-well-known films, but I just use TV these days as mindless distraction. It's the cinephiles (and fans of other material that doesn't get picked up by streaming, like some anime) who really lose out in this.
LeoPanthera 4y ago
I wonder what they're going to do with the library of discs.
- robotnikman 4y ago
  I hope they donate them to some libraries or something and not just dump them in a landfill
  - Arrath 4y ago
    I have to imagine there was a trend away from refreshing the inventory as discs wore out while management was mulling the decision to shutter this side of the business, a lot of the inventory might be fairly marginal and worn by this point. E: Not to say that Netflix should just dumpster it all. I'd love to see a pennies-on-the-dollar buyer beware 'these might be scratched to hell' wholesale for anyone who cares to pick some up. Whether its a la carte, or "Buy 10 <genre> for $X" or, well, who knows. Just about anything would be better than tossing 'em all into a landfill.
  - evanelias 4y ago
    Whatever route they choose, hopefully they have better luck than the infamous Kim's Video collection: https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/09/12/the-strange-fate-of-kims-video/ https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/09/12/the-strange-fate-of-...
School-Cotton 4y ago
Where am I supposed to get movies from now? Serious question, given that Blockbuster etc. no longer exist, and I don't want to use streaming services with terrible compression artifacts and dubious 24Hz->60Hz conversion.
- smcl 4y ago
  Your friendly neighbourhood torrent merchant, I guess
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    For me that’s a last resort. As someone whose career involves producing intellectual property (like most programmers) I prefer to pay for it whenever possible. I’ll torrent things if they aren’t available any other way, but I hope that isn’t the case.
    - can16358p 4y ago
      I know that exact feeling. While I'd also pay what producers deserve, in some cases it's not possible. You could pirate the content, and buy something (e.g. Merch or something similar where the funds go roughly to the same place as if you've obtained a legal copy of the actual content) other than the actual media from them. If buying a 4K Blu-Ray copy of a movie is 20 dollars, but I'd prefer an MP4 on my computer (and don't have a disc player anyway): I can simply pirate a BRRip torrent, but get for example a T-shirt of a similar price, or perhaps even directly donate money to them if possible. I believe its fair play.
    - smcl 4y ago
      Me too. I subscribe to Netflix, HBO and Amazon though. There are shows companies will not offer in my locale at any price. I could either take a stand and hope that whoever is in charge picks up the signal somehow then wait … or I could just download a few episodes and move on.
  - Macha 4y ago
    The problem there is once big releases start going digital only, the torrent sites will only be able to provide you webrips with the same quality limits as the streaming sources.
jimbokun 4y ago
The one big advantage the disk service had over streaming, was that Netflix could buy the disks from anywhere (even the local Walmart, if they had to), and lend them to customers. Streaming requires negotiating licensing rights, with each IP owner independently. This is why the DVD service had so many more titles than the streaming service. At least when I was actively using it.
- gambiting 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's not true - most normal DVDs/BluRays come with a "not for rental" text somewhere and you can't legally rent them. Distributors sell different copies of discs which specifically are for the rental market and which come with a different licence.
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    I'm almost positive that Netflix had a licensing agreement to print as many discs as they needed after a while. After the first few years, the number of "branded" discs with the silkscreened movie logos dropped dramatically.
    - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
      Sure, but that's because the threat of "just buying originals" existed. Publishers had to choose from "be paid some money, and Netflix gets a deal on copies of movies," or "be paid zero money, and Netflix pays extra to scrounge up copies of those movies from somebody else." Netflix (and movie viewers) get what they want either way, so the publisher can't just hold firm on a high price or block distribution of the film.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
        Licensing deals are a great way to get around contract items that include volumes of "sold copies." Netflix didn't exactly have them over a barrel. It was a good deal for both parties.
cocacola1 4y ago
I only ever got one thing from the DVD service: a disc from a season of Freakazoid! (that I never returned. Sorry). I still purchase a lot of Blu-Rays, but I guess others lose a source of ripping now. That's unfortunate.
jfengel 4y ago
Huh. And I was just thinking about quitting it. My queue has dropped from >80 discs to under a dozen. I've been relying on it to bring me stuff on services I don't subscribe to. That's how I'm watching Picard, for example. There's not much else on Paramount I want to see. I could subscribe and then ditch it, but it has been convenient to just have DVDs arrive in the mail. But there's less and less of that, and enough stuff on their subscription service that I've got plenty of entertainment. (I try to limit my staring-at-the-flickering-box time to a half-hour or so per day.)
- troupe 4y ago
  Buying used DVDs and then just reselling them when you are done isn't a bad way to handle a series that you want to watch.
sliken 4y ago
Sad. Bluray sounds and looks better than any video streaming I've seen. Never look for compression artifacts, you'll never be able to enjoy highly compressed streaming again. I got a LG C1 tv, upgraded netflix to 4k streaming ... and was disappointed, until I started watching bluray.
- derwiki 4y ago
  Your local library might be a good option! Mine has an extensive selection of Bluray and can request from other nearby libraries.
  - drewcoo 4y ago
    I miss the Seattle Public Library! They had a great collection. I could place a hold on materials for my local SPL outlet and it would be delivered there from whatever others the material was at. Wonderful! Here in the middle of nowhere, the public library's selection is slim, recent, and popular. It's hard to find classics or art house or cult film - the kind of things that nobody streams because streaming service libraries are slim, recent, and popular. I can use InterLibrary Loan to borrow up to 3 DVDs at a time. The "borrowing" time is time from request to time of return, then I can request 3 more. This works out to about 3 DVDs a month. I was doing DVD.com for another ~12 a month. Total about 15. Now that fifteen movies is become three, I may have to see if I can get a library account from the local university and also ILL through them.
- wyager 4y ago
  Yep - Netflix 4K compression is pretty bad. They put a fair amount of work into specifying content delivery requirements (although they have some weird requirements like asking for P3 rather than Rec.2020) but then they compress the hell out of everything so it looks bad anyway. Very frustrating to see aggressive banding, block artifacts, etc. It is in many ways a blessing to be completely oblivious to such defects, which most people seem to be. Yet another way in which streaming content providers seem to be incentivizing piracy. You can certainly pirate a full-quality blu-ray copy of a movie.
  - 4y ago
k__ 4y ago
I remember a friend telling me about it in 2006. They would order movies and send them back again. Sounded like too much trouble to me, because I had a DVD renting machine next door. When streaming became a thing, I didn't remember the name and thought Netflix was a brand new thing.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  They had a massive catalog and a good recommendation engine based on what you've viewed and queued up. No rental store or kiosk could match it.
DavidAdams 4y ago
This story prompted me to look into my email archives and I found an email thread from 2002 about how I accentually sent one of my own DVDs back in the Netflix envelope, and we had to straighten that out.
35208654 4y ago
I doubt they have the storage for all those discs. Won’t they just let everyone keep them?
- fullshark 4y ago
  Honestly that seems like a great marketing/PR idea, give all longtime subscribers (i.e. at least last 3 months) the chance to pick up a free dvd.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    At last, I can get a free Gigli DVD! Oh wondrous day!
akmarinov 4y ago
Remember back when Netflix wanted to split its DVD shipping business and its streaming business into two companies. The DVD shipping business would’ve been called Qwikster. Guess it would’ve died today had it happened. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netflix-idUSTRE78I23B20110919 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netflix-idUSTRE78I23B2011...
- qqqwerty 4y ago
  The NFLX share price dropped something like 70-80% after that announcement. At the time, I was a very happy subscriber and it occurred to me that, despite being on a DVD plan, I had only been watching via streaming for quite a while. Got a sense that the market might be overreacting and bought some shares. That turned out to be a great decision, my only regret was not buying more. I highly doubt that we are going to see that again this time around.
- russellbeattie 4y ago
  I have a story about that. It's a lesson about how you never know who you'll meet in Silicon Valley. My son was playing in one of the various non competitive soccer leagues here, and one of his volunteer coaches was a lovely woman who had mentioned she worked at Netflix. A day after the Qwikster debacle, after they announced they were abandoning the decision, my son had practice and while hanging out I happened to have a moment with the coach, and I said something along the lines of "Wow, so that was quite the screwup at Netflix, hey?" Complete with a stupid grin on my face. And she responded with sort of a sour face, "Well, you know, Reed really thought it was the right decision and we supported him." And then she walked away. Wait... "Reed?" "We?" Uh-oh. How bad did I just jam my foot into my mouth? Badly it turns out. I went home and looked her up and sure enough, she was a c-level exec and was obviously part of the decision. And here I am, one of the many moron parents she has to deal with as a volunteer coach seemingly mocking her about it at practice during what was probably a very bad week for her. I felt like a total ass. I apologized the next time I saw her, but you know, that doesn't really do much. I've since learned to not assume any more.
- lIl-IIIl 4y ago
  I remember it was quite a big deal and they got skewered at SNL over it: https://youtu.be/0eAXW-zkGlM https://youtu.be/0eAXW-zkGlM.
dml2135 4y ago
I have fond memories of the Netflix DVD service. In high school, I would get a disk, immediately burn a copy, and return it the same day. I could get about 20-25 DVDs a month on the 3-DVD plan this way. Since many DVDs were dual-layered but consumer DVD-Rs were single-layered, I had to transcode the video to fit on the smaller DVD. This resulted in the fan on my family's shared desktop going haywire, prompting many inquries from my parents. I think I told them I had to defrag the hard drive. At some point, towards the end of each month, Netflix started delaying how quickly DVDs would be sent out if you used this many. I think they settled a class-action lawsuit over this, and I was rewarded a free month. After a few years, when I had a couple shoeboxes of DVDs, hard drives started getting large enough that I could just store all the movies on an external drive. This was good since the consumer DVD-Rs didn't last that long -- the ink would degrade, ususally towards the center of the disk, which would result in a movie sometimes freezing in the last 15-minutes or so. A few instances of this with friends over was enough for me to make the final transition. I do miss the process of the physical disks though. It was really excited every time a new one would come. I would take some time labeling them, drawing out the movie title in the production font. And friends loved to browse through my collection when they came over. They were amazed by how much I'd amassed. Nowadays, with all the content available, my Plex server with 10x as many movies barely elicits a shrug. But I really owe Netflix for exposing me to so much at such a formative time in my life. Being able to see any film I wanted in the early 2000s really broadened my perspective on the world. Their recommendation system at the time was top notch, and I watched tons of things I would have never seen otherwise.
- tmountain 4y ago
  I had a similar experience copying DVDs from the Redbox (automated rental kiosk). I felt so accomplished getting all the right software and amassing a huge collection of pirated disks (stacks of DVD organizers in my room). Streaming went mainstream a little later, and I don't even remember what I did with all the disks, but I probably either gave them away or donated them...
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    I had a few binders full of movies on CDs that I had... obtained. When I ripped the movies onto them, the quality seemed acceptable. Damn good actually when you played them back on a CRT TV. Now when I try to watch them, I see how terrible they look. At that time, we didn't have DVD burners (or they were super expensive), so I would have to transcode the DVD into that weird DivX codec so it would fit on the 700MB CD. I was going to go through the CDs one day and copy the movies back onto a hard drive, but the quality was so bad of the rips. I had also found that despite being stored in a binder in a closet, many of the discs had also deteriorated to where I couldn't copy the file back off of it.
jmbwell 4y ago
To this day, I miss: - the Queue - Reviews and suggestions from my actual IRL human non-algorithmic friends Netflix knows what’s best for Netflix I guess, but those two features are what made the service for me. I discovered so much great stuff with those two simple functions.
filmgirlcw 4y ago
Pour one out for a real one. I haven't rented a disc from Netflix in at least a decade but as someone who joined in 1999 (I got my first DVD player for Christmas in 1998) and used to lovingly curate my queue, I have such fond memories of the service in high school and college. As a movie lover, Netflix was a great way to get stuff that was either out of print or sometimes prohibitively expensive (certain Criterion discs, box sets of TV shows) that I couldn't find anywhere else. I was/am an avid movie collector, so I often bought when I could, but Netflix was such a great way to rent stuff I didn't know if I wanted to buy or not and an early way to binge-watch TV seasons I even paid for the 4 or 5 discs out at one time option at one point. I probably still have some DVDs from Netflix that I forgot to return (and then reported as "lost") in boxes somewhere. I still buy a lot of physical media, even though I then almost immediately rip it to my Plex server, because I prefer the bitrate and extra features -- I buy digital movies/TV shows too because iTunes always has sales -- but the era of renting a physical disc ended a long time ago for me. Still, seeing this makes me a bit sad, just because of the memories I have of a simpler time and because the selection was just so fantastic (still better than what you can get on streaming for some stuff).
- __david__ 4y ago
  > As a movie lover, Netflix was a great way to get stuff that was either out of print or sometimes prohibitively expensive (certain Criterion discs, box sets of TV shows) that I couldn't find anywhere else. It was until it wasn't. It was about 10 years ago I first noticed the "unavailable" section of my queue getting bigger. I cancelled my subscription somewhere around 2018 when I completely ran my queue out and still had 10 or 15 movies in the "unavailable" section. Some were even movies that didn't appear to be out of print. In it's heyday I agree, it was the most reliable place to get anything, but towards the end they chopped off their long tail and therefore neutered their usefulness to me…
  - filmgirlcw 4y ago
    Yeah, that’s when I stopped subscribing to the mail option too. As you say, when they chopped the long tail off, I might as well just buy used discs off of Amazon or eBay.
verisimilitude 4y ago
"We want to be ready when video-on-demand happens. That’s why the company is called Netflix, not DVD-by-Mail." https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-on-how-the-company-was-born.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-on...
nostromo 4y ago
This has to be the biggest pivot I've seen in my life. A truly epic reworking of an entire company from successful business model A to successful business model B -- both wildly successful. And really there was a second pivot too: from streaming platform to original content studio. It's a great reminder to focus on what value you bring to your customers (watching videos), not on any particular business model or way of doing business.
- pavon 4y ago
  The way I heard it, Netflix started with the intent of being a streaming company but found it more difficult than expected so they pivoted to mailing DVDs, but continued to work on the streaming in the background until the market forces made it viable to pivot back (licensing, residential internet speeds, etc).
  - paxys 4y ago
    They may have had an idea for it in their heads, sure, but in the mid 90s (when they started their business) online video streaming was very, very far from reality. This was before the first online stream, before RealPlayer, before Broadcast.com. None of the mainstream video compression standards existed. You couldn't even stream video over ethernet back then. It was only the internet infrastructure upgrades over the next decade which made it feasible for general consumers.
    - johnwalkr 4y ago
      I think the public-facing story of Netflix's start in 1997 (that DVDs came out in 1997 and they looked like they would be easy/cheap to ship). But, the the first version of realvideo was released in early 1997. I remember using it to watch pirated streaming video of Star Wars special edition and South Park season 1 (I just checked and those were both in 1997). It was acceptable quality (slightly worse than VHS or video CD) if you had a cable modem.
- m463 4y ago
  I have to say, as a current dvd subscriber, that I feel more abandonment than pivot.
donatj 4y ago
NO! I still use and love DVD Netflix. It's the only way to see a ton of things short of piracy.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > short of piracy. I try to be sympathetic to the entertainment industry when it comes to the topic of piracy, but they're really working overtime to make it harder and harder to be…
glonq 4y ago
I credit Valve's Steam for retiring me from software piracy, Spotify for retiring me from music piracy, and Netflix for retiring me from movie piracy. And "the terrible quality of primetime network TV programs" for retiring me from TV piracy ;)
- rektide 4y ago
  I have hundreds of Steam games & keep buying there but god damn does it make me sad to have traded first-sale rights for this flimsy access to a catalog with no ability to share or resell. I resisted for so long. But now my library is so big. I feel like half the random games I get are only available on steam or other like services anyways.
- paxys 4y ago
  And yet all of these same companies are responsible for today's reality where you own nothing and can resell nothing. Converting the mainstream commerce system from simple buying and selling of goods into licenses and subscriptions is the biggest scam corporations have ever pulled on the consumer class.
  - sowbug 4y ago
    "And yet" implies an unexpected consequence.
  - Clamchop 4y ago
    I do feel we get quite a lot in return from this state of affairs.
  - deckard1 4y ago
    Coincidentally, Amoeba records put out a really interesting episode of What's In My Bag? today with Seal[1]. At the end (I linked the timestamp) he starts talking about perceived value of owning an album vs. the digital ether. Really worth a watch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WznlFoMd24&t=915s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WznlFoMd24&t=915s
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
standardUser 4y ago
I no longer own any DVD or Blu-ray drives, or any optical drives at all! And even if I did, I wouldn't want to sit through the title screens or deal with the menus. Too many years of instant playing from streaming services and pirated downloads has spoiled me. And I don't miss the old ways even a little.
bastardoperator 4y ago
TIL it's still going.
stinkytaco 4y ago
What I'll really miss about Netflix DVD is the recommendation system. It adapted to the user rather than showing some pointless average. I graded things from 1-5 with 3 being a movie I liked and when it showed me ratings, it would show me what my expected rating would be. So when I saw a three star movie, I could expect to like it. If I saw a 4 star movie I could expect to really like it. I've not seen anything to replicate that since.
- cpeterso 4y ago
  I have hundreds of movies rated in my Netflix DVD account. I wish I could export my ratings and import them elsewhere. Any such options? Amazon Prime shows movies’ star ratings (from IMDb?), but didn’t let users rate movies, AFAICT. I’ve found Taste.io https://www.taste.io/ https://www.taste.io/ recommendations to be very good, even with fewer ratings than I gave a Netflix.
  - stinkytaco 4y ago
    I have probably a thousand ratings and I know they are allowing a PDF export of your history and ratings. If I could find the right service I wouldn't mind spending a rainy afternoon or sick day migrating them by hand. That would allow me to revisit some of my old ratings and adjust them for my changed tastes. As far as I know there's no export function beyond that, however. I'll give taste.io a spin. It looks like it might be a bit streaming focused. I know letterboxd is where real film fans go, but I'll miss that usually spot on star prediction.
    - luke727 4y ago
      PDF? I exported my Netflix data a couple months ago and I'm pretty sure it was either CSV, XML, or JSON.
  - luke727 4y ago
    You can export all your data from Netflix.
  - jbaber 4y ago
ignite 4y ago
I don't see a date. Anyone know? I still have this service. Like the other commenters, I have it to get access to content I can't otherwise get. Netflix streaming is, honestly, not full of very interesting titles. The DVD catalog is much more interesting.
- sixstringtheory 4y ago
  > it will ship its final DVDs to customers on Sept. 29
justinator 4y ago
One word: The Criterion Collection OK, that's three words.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
echelon 4y ago
https://archive.is/gtjDX https://archive.is/gtjDX
retrocryptid 4y ago
They should keep a small DVD by mail service and run it out of the last remaining Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon. That way tourists could come and see DVDs on the shelf and a bunch of people and machines stuffing DVDs in envelopes to see how we all lived in the 90s and early 2000s.
cogogo 4y ago
IIRC when I subscribed to the dvd service 23 years ago or so you could actually browse a library. Maybe it’s an apple tv thing but browsing titles feels near impossible in today’s streaming world - especially on netflix. Side note: would love to know my ltcv - almost an annuity at this point.
rektide 4y ago
Thus we come to the sad end of a tale. A once robust medium where people could own content (yes the MPAA and RIAA will disagree with that statement, but at least users have some right of first sale rights) is dead. A medium where most of the world's good content got published is dead. Now we have ever reshuffling access to a smaller select catalog of stuff. Ever piece of content has to be fueded over by lawyers & rights holders. DVDs and Blurays exist but primarily for mainstream content & republishes of old & smaller content is rare. Netflix has attained their goal of disrupting reliable access to the form's moving pictures.
legitster 4y ago
Remember when Netflix wanted to spin off their DVD service into a standalone company? Before the internet bullied them into cancelling their plans? Well, it turns out they were right. A standalone DVD by mail service with it's own name might have actually been able to hold on. It was a good service that died in the shade of Netflix's brand. As it is, I miss being able to just watch whatever I want and not being locked into Netflix's dire content library. Want to make it through the Best Pictures nominees? Good luck without having 6 different streaming services.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- phone8675309 4y ago
  It's very easy if you know how to torrent things
scrum-treats 4y ago
Are local libraries still offering DVD checkouts? May want to renew my card.
subpixel 4y ago
Ah, I recall 1998 when my big idea was a DVD delivery and pickup service for Manhattan, with an online selection tool, utilizing the bicycle messengers that were already delivering items to your office. Thankfully nobody encouraged me and I never wasted blood and treasure on the project ;)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pyuser583 4y ago
I was seriously just about to subscribe to this.
1letterunixname 4y ago
The remaining Blockbuster store enters the chat.
mobilene 4y ago
It's time. But I have fond memories of this service, of which I was an early adopter. My sons and I were among the first to sign up for the disc we could insert into our Nintendo Wii and watch the early Netflix streaming service, too. Netflix has been a clear positive in my family's lives.
readams 4y ago
I was a loyal Netflix disk user for decades. I was in the habit of adding anything I heard of I wanted to watch to my queue; you could even add stuff that hadn't been released yet. I only finally cancelled it during the pandemic when I starting finding that Netflix just stopped bothering to buy a lot of titles that I wanted to watch; lots of stuff that I knew was out on Blu-ray would only be available in DVD, or would not be available at all. And there weren't any new release movies coming out because of the pandemic. So I finally gave up on the disks.
quags 4y ago
I used to get dvd cases, burn the disk after using dvd shrink to make it for on the disks I used then print out a coved and labeled the disk with the name and IMDb rating. I amassed quite a library but there were many I burned and never watched. These eventually moved to binders and have probably been over 15 years now. I wonder if they would still play.
WalterBright 4y ago
This is terrible news. They aren't streaming that disk catalog. It's often the only way to see a particular movie. And I'll miss the full-length snarky Eddie Mueller commentary on the film noir movies (better than the movie!).
paxys 4y ago
End of an era. Netflix pulled off possibly the biggest successful self-disruption of a business in history with online streaming, right alongside Apple with iPod -> iPhone.
anonu 4y ago
Surprised it wasn't done earlier. Shoulda sold to redbox.com. How that business is still in business is beyond me. But I guess not everyone needs streaming. The sum total of streaming providers is probably more than what I used to be pay for cable at this point.
- eslaught 4y ago
  They tried spinning it off as Quickster some years ago. It was an epic PR failure. I suspect that's why they're throwing in the towel now: they don't want a repeat even if the business could be saved.
radar1310 4y ago
I feel bad for the people and there are a lot of them that have crap internet still to this day.
neilv 4y ago
With the loss of Netflix DVDs, what happens to everyone who wants access to the huge catalog? Or who wants to refer people to obscure titles, even if those people normally aren't interested in a huge catalog? (Are we back to monitoring eBay for used discs of titles we want to watch? Do we end up paying for all the umpteen half-butted streaming services, every time we add another service to get a specific title? Is there some tablescraps streaming service that can pick up all/most obscure titles, to supplement subscribing to one mainstream streaming service rather than all of them?)
- dlgeek 4y ago
  Purchase on Amazon?
can16358p 4y ago
Netflix still did have a DVD service? Seriously? I know they've started as a physical rental service but I always though they've ended that at least a decade ago, if not more. Can't believe they were still into it in 2023 anyway.
koiz 4y ago
Just when I was thinking of getting it again.
p0w3n3d 4y ago
People recently got accustomed to think "I have all the films in the cloud". However as for my experience the movies I'd like to watch are not available on three major VOD providers I am currently paying for. Moreover movies disappear, especially from Netflix and when I come back to re watch it with my spouse, it's no longer there... I wouldn't call myself a Luddite but I'd like to have a stability here
- p0w3n3d 4y ago
  Also I'd like to highlight that DVD rental laws are different than streaming laws. If I have a DVD rental, I think that no company can get exclusive rights to rent their DVDs in my country. However I am not sure, since this is simple observation that this exclusivity is a new thing.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  Yeah, all those moments when you are asking someone "remember that movie? That is a classic. You need to watch it" and then you look for it and it is nowhere to be seen.
Animats 4y ago
That's too bad. The online library is tiny compared to the DVD rental library.
wodenokoto 4y ago
Netflix streaming is an international force to be reckoned with. It has changed how movies and tv series are written and produced. It has changed strategies of major entertainment producers like Disney, HBO and Paramount. Meanwhile Netflix DVD service is a small, national business that had a good run against blockbuster, but it was its sister service that killed blockbuster. I think Netflix was right to try and push it into its own company. That way it had a chance to survive providing a niche service in the states. Of course it’s just a distraction inside Netflix, no matter how nice the upsides are to its loyal followers. This is why we can’t have nice things.
markdown 4y ago
The title is incorrect. It says that Netflix will run its DVD service for another 25 years, but the article says it's ending the service now.
mozman 4y ago
Fun fact: the envelope Netflix uses for DVD was specifically designed for low cost shipping with the US postmaster. One man owns the patent.
damontal 4y ago
It was so much fun filling up your queue after first signing up, finding films you always wanted to see, being able to add entire tv series, changing priorities, etc. It was a unique kind of fun that I can’t seem to reproduce anywhere else these days.
xtiansimon 4y ago
So where is all that equipment going to go? Which is just my way of getting to my wish that my local library could duplicate dvds for loan on demand. Rather, I have to request and wait. Seems ridiculous for digital media.
millerm 4y ago
I was literally going to go back to DVDs. Boooo!
rchaud 4y ago
This move makes sense. Netflix feels like it's 90% "store brand" products these days, and we know how much they dislike paying royalties to other studios.
eatbitseveryday 4y ago
I recently discovered you can call Netflix to ask them to increase your disc plan to at most 8-at-a-time. I bumped mine up to get the last rentals I can until the service disappears. Sad times.

356 points by jbegley 4y ago

captaintobs 4y ago

It's such a funny story that Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix for $50 million.

haolez 4y ago
This could also have led to a bad ending. They could have killed what would make Netflix great and successful.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  > They could have killed what would make Netflix great and successful You mean like Netflix is doing now?
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Yes but without making all those tech folks rich first. (not hating, get rich if you can)
  - isk517 4y ago
    Yeah, but it's taken them the better part of a decade to do that. If they had been bought by Blockbuster they would have had access to people with the know-how and experience necessary to destroy a successful business quicker and more efficiently.
  - dnissley 4y ago
    Yes, but without the cambrian explosion of content that netflix footed the bill for over so many years
    - echelon 4y ago
      Netflix did not create a Cambrian explosion of video content. That would be YouTube and TikTok. The Cambrian explosion of cinema is still waiting to happen, but generative AI is poised to deliver on that sooner or later.
      - Clamchop 4y ago
        I think if we constrain it to scripted television (and a fair number of movies now, too), they did. House of Cards was a big deal for being a streaming-first big-budget TV show. That's commonplace now. That wasn't that long ago. Since then, all of the major players have joined the table, sunk audacious sums of money into developing new projects, and there's more high-end TV made in a year than I can watch. Cue the flip "but none of it is any good" comments but nevertheless, Netflix blazed that trail.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

lancesells 4y ago

This sounds like a business opportunity for someone.

overcast 4y ago
Yeh, Redbox.
- pavon 4y ago
  Not the same. Redbox is a good Blockbuster replacement in that they have a good selection of recent hits, but not much else. What made Netflix magical was that it had a huge back catalog - larger than any rental store or library I have ever used.
jfengel 4y ago
It's a niche, but I don't know how profitable it is. They pay postage both ways, which must cost them a significant fraction of a dollar. It doesn't take all that many disks per month to eat their profit margin. And it all seems pretty hard on the disks. I've had a few disks arrive broken, including one just recently. I know that sometimes they have studio agreements to burn their own custom disks, but sometimes they're just paying full retail price. Netflix got rid of much of its back catalog of cinephile movies a long time ago. I suspect that they just stopped replacing them when the physical disk broke. I don't know how big the market is for people who want obscure movies; I'm sure it's not zero, but it's probably not enormous.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  It's a big deal for me. There's very little on Netflix streaming that interests me, but I've got a DVD queue of over 400 great films.
  - jfengel 4y ago
    That's what Netflix's niche should have been. They can own one copy of every movie. I gather that they used to have the greatest library in the world, and have gradually let it diminish to a kind of glorified Redbox. I discovered that I'm just not a cinephile. I would love to love old, great, less-well-known films, but I just use TV these days as mindless distraction. It's the cinephiles (and fans of other material that doesn't get picked up by streaming, like some anime) who really lose out in this.

LeoPanthera 4y ago

I wonder what they're going to do with the library of discs.

robotnikman 4y ago
I hope they donate them to some libraries or something and not just dump them in a landfill
- Arrath 4y ago
  I have to imagine there was a trend away from refreshing the inventory as discs wore out while management was mulling the decision to shutter this side of the business, a lot of the inventory might be fairly marginal and worn by this point. E: Not to say that Netflix should just dumpster it all. I'd love to see a pennies-on-the-dollar buyer beware 'these might be scratched to hell' wholesale for anyone who cares to pick some up. Whether its a la carte, or "Buy 10 <genre> for $X" or, well, who knows. Just about anything would be better than tossing 'em all into a landfill.
- evanelias 4y ago
  Whatever route they choose, hopefully they have better luck than the infamous Kim's Video collection: https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/09/12/the-strange-fate-of-kims-video/ https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/09/12/the-strange-fate-of-...

School-Cotton 4y ago

Where am I supposed to get movies from now? Serious question, given that Blockbuster etc. no longer exist, and I don't want to use streaming services with terrible compression artifacts and dubious 24Hz->60Hz conversion.

smcl 4y ago
Your friendly neighbourhood torrent merchant, I guess
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  For me that’s a last resort. As someone whose career involves producing intellectual property (like most programmers) I prefer to pay for it whenever possible. I’ll torrent things if they aren’t available any other way, but I hope that isn’t the case.
  - can16358p 4y ago
    I know that exact feeling. While I'd also pay what producers deserve, in some cases it's not possible. You could pirate the content, and buy something (e.g. Merch or something similar where the funds go roughly to the same place as if you've obtained a legal copy of the actual content) other than the actual media from them. If buying a 4K Blu-Ray copy of a movie is 20 dollars, but I'd prefer an MP4 on my computer (and don't have a disc player anyway): I can simply pirate a BRRip torrent, but get for example a T-shirt of a similar price, or perhaps even directly donate money to them if possible. I believe its fair play.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Me too. I subscribe to Netflix, HBO and Amazon though. There are shows companies will not offer in my locale at any price. I could either take a stand and hope that whoever is in charge picks up the signal somehow then wait … or I could just download a few episodes and move on.
- Macha 4y ago
  The problem there is once big releases start going digital only, the torrent sites will only be able to provide you webrips with the same quality limits as the streaming sources.

jimbokun 4y ago

The one big advantage the disk service had over streaming, was that Netflix could buy the disks from anywhere (even the local Walmart, if they had to), and lend them to customers. Streaming requires negotiating licensing rights, with each IP owner independently. This is why the DVD service had so many more titles than the streaming service. At least when I was actively using it.

gambiting 4y ago
I'm pretty sure that's not true - most normal DVDs/BluRays come with a "not for rental" text somewhere and you can't legally rent them. Distributors sell different copies of discs which specifically are for the rental market and which come with a different licence.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  I'm almost positive that Netflix had a licensing agreement to print as many discs as they needed after a while. After the first few years, the number of "branded" discs with the silkscreened movie logos dropped dramatically.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    Sure, but that's because the threat of "just buying originals" existed. Publishers had to choose from "be paid some money, and Netflix gets a deal on copies of movies," or "be paid zero money, and Netflix pays extra to scrounge up copies of those movies from somebody else." Netflix (and movie viewers) get what they want either way, so the publisher can't just hold firm on a high price or block distribution of the film.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
      Licensing deals are a great way to get around contract items that include volumes of "sold copies." Netflix didn't exactly have them over a barrel. It was a good deal for both parties.

cocacola1 4y ago

I only ever got one thing from the DVD service: a disc from a season of Freakazoid! (that I never returned. Sorry). I still purchase a lot of Blu-Rays, but I guess others lose a source of ripping now. That's unfortunate.

jfengel 4y ago

Huh. And I was just thinking about quitting it. My queue has dropped from >80 discs to under a dozen. I've been relying on it to bring me stuff on services I don't subscribe to. That's how I'm watching Picard, for example. There's not much else on Paramount I want to see. I could subscribe and then ditch it, but it has been convenient to just have DVDs arrive in the mail. But there's less and less of that, and enough stuff on their subscription service that I've got plenty of entertainment. (I try to limit my staring-at-the-flickering-box time to a half-hour or so per day.)

troupe 4y ago
Buying used DVDs and then just reselling them when you are done isn't a bad way to handle a series that you want to watch.

sliken 4y ago

Sad. Bluray sounds and looks better than any video streaming I've seen. Never look for compression artifacts, you'll never be able to enjoy highly compressed streaming again. I got a LG C1 tv, upgraded netflix to 4k streaming ... and was disappointed, until I started watching bluray.

derwiki 4y ago
Your local library might be a good option! Mine has an extensive selection of Bluray and can request from other nearby libraries.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  I miss the Seattle Public Library! They had a great collection. I could place a hold on materials for my local SPL outlet and it would be delivered there from whatever others the material was at. Wonderful! Here in the middle of nowhere, the public library's selection is slim, recent, and popular. It's hard to find classics or art house or cult film - the kind of things that nobody streams because streaming service libraries are slim, recent, and popular. I can use InterLibrary Loan to borrow up to 3 DVDs at a time. The "borrowing" time is time from request to time of return, then I can request 3 more. This works out to about 3 DVDs a month. I was doing DVD.com for another ~12 a month. Total about 15. Now that fifteen movies is become three, I may have to see if I can get a library account from the local university and also ILL through them.
wyager 4y ago
Yep - Netflix 4K compression is pretty bad. They put a fair amount of work into specifying content delivery requirements (although they have some weird requirements like asking for P3 rather than Rec.2020) but then they compress the hell out of everything so it looks bad anyway. Very frustrating to see aggressive banding, block artifacts, etc. It is in many ways a blessing to be completely oblivious to such defects, which most people seem to be. Yet another way in which streaming content providers seem to be incentivizing piracy. You can certainly pirate a full-quality blu-ray copy of a movie.
- 4y ago

k__ 4y ago

I remember a friend telling me about it in 2006. They would order movies and send them back again. Sounded like too much trouble to me, because I had a DVD renting machine next door. When streaming became a thing, I didn't remember the name and thought Netflix was a brand new thing.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
They had a massive catalog and a good recommendation engine based on what you've viewed and queued up. No rental store or kiosk could match it.

DavidAdams 4y ago

This story prompted me to look into my email archives and I found an email thread from 2002 about how I accentually sent one of my own DVDs back in the Netflix envelope, and we had to straighten that out.

35208654 4y ago

I doubt they have the storage for all those discs. Won’t they just let everyone keep them?

fullshark 4y ago
Honestly that seems like a great marketing/PR idea, give all longtime subscribers (i.e. at least last 3 months) the chance to pick up a free dvd.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  At last, I can get a free Gigli DVD! Oh wondrous day!

akmarinov 4y ago

Remember back when Netflix wanted to split its DVD shipping business and its streaming business into two companies. The DVD shipping business would’ve been called Qwikster. Guess it would’ve died today had it happened. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netflix-idUSTRE78I23B20110919 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netflix-idUSTRE78I23B2011...

qqqwerty 4y ago
The NFLX share price dropped something like 70-80% after that announcement. At the time, I was a very happy subscriber and it occurred to me that, despite being on a DVD plan, I had only been watching via streaming for quite a while. Got a sense that the market might be overreacting and bought some shares. That turned out to be a great decision, my only regret was not buying more. I highly doubt that we are going to see that again this time around.
russellbeattie 4y ago
I have a story about that. It's a lesson about how you never know who you'll meet in Silicon Valley. My son was playing in one of the various non competitive soccer leagues here, and one of his volunteer coaches was a lovely woman who had mentioned she worked at Netflix. A day after the Qwikster debacle, after they announced they were abandoning the decision, my son had practice and while hanging out I happened to have a moment with the coach, and I said something along the lines of "Wow, so that was quite the screwup at Netflix, hey?" Complete with a stupid grin on my face. And she responded with sort of a sour face, "Well, you know, Reed really thought it was the right decision and we supported him." And then she walked away. Wait... "Reed?" "We?" Uh-oh. How bad did I just jam my foot into my mouth? Badly it turns out. I went home and looked her up and sure enough, she was a c-level exec and was obviously part of the decision. And here I am, one of the many moron parents she has to deal with as a volunteer coach seemingly mocking her about it at practice during what was probably a very bad week for her. I felt like a total ass. I apologized the next time I saw her, but you know, that doesn't really do much. I've since learned to not assume any more.
lIl-IIIl 4y ago
I remember it was quite a big deal and they got skewered at SNL over it: https://youtu.be/0eAXW-zkGlM https://youtu.be/0eAXW-zkGlM.

dml2135 4y ago

I have fond memories of the Netflix DVD service. In high school, I would get a disk, immediately burn a copy, and return it the same day. I could get about 20-25 DVDs a month on the 3-DVD plan this way. Since many DVDs were dual-layered but consumer DVD-Rs were single-layered, I had to transcode the video to fit on the smaller DVD. This resulted in the fan on my family's shared desktop going haywire, prompting many inquries from my parents. I think I told them I had to defrag the hard drive. At some point, towards the end of each month, Netflix started delaying how quickly DVDs would be sent out if you used this many. I think they settled a class-action lawsuit over this, and I was rewarded a free month. After a few years, when I had a couple shoeboxes of DVDs, hard drives started getting large enough that I could just store all the movies on an external drive. This was good since the consumer DVD-Rs didn't last that long -- the ink would degrade, ususally towards the center of the disk, which would result in a movie sometimes freezing in the last 15-minutes or so. A few instances of this with friends over was enough for me to make the final transition. I do miss the process of the physical disks though. It was really excited every time a new one would come. I would take some time labeling them, drawing out the movie title in the production font. And friends loved to browse through my collection when they came over. They were amazed by how much I'd amassed. Nowadays, with all the content available, my Plex server with 10x as many movies barely elicits a shrug. But I really owe Netflix for exposing me to so much at such a formative time in my life. Being able to see any film I wanted in the early 2000s really broadened my perspective on the world. Their recommendation system at the time was top notch, and I watched tons of things I would have never seen otherwise.

tmountain 4y ago
I had a similar experience copying DVDs from the Redbox (automated rental kiosk). I felt so accomplished getting all the right software and amassing a huge collection of pirated disks (stacks of DVD organizers in my room). Streaming went mainstream a little later, and I don't even remember what I did with all the disks, but I probably either gave them away or donated them...
- olyjohn 4y ago
  I had a few binders full of movies on CDs that I had... obtained. When I ripped the movies onto them, the quality seemed acceptable. Damn good actually when you played them back on a CRT TV. Now when I try to watch them, I see how terrible they look. At that time, we didn't have DVD burners (or they were super expensive), so I would have to transcode the DVD into that weird DivX codec so it would fit on the 700MB CD. I was going to go through the CDs one day and copy the movies back onto a hard drive, but the quality was so bad of the rips. I had also found that despite being stored in a binder in a closet, many of the discs had also deteriorated to where I couldn't copy the file back off of it.

jmbwell 4y ago

To this day, I miss: - the Queue - Reviews and suggestions from my actual IRL human non-algorithmic friends Netflix knows what’s best for Netflix I guess, but those two features are what made the service for me. I discovered so much great stuff with those two simple functions.

filmgirlcw 4y ago

Pour one out for a real one. I haven't rented a disc from Netflix in at least a decade but as someone who joined in 1999 (I got my first DVD player for Christmas in 1998) and used to lovingly curate my queue, I have such fond memories of the service in high school and college. As a movie lover, Netflix was a great way to get stuff that was either out of print or sometimes prohibitively expensive (certain Criterion discs, box sets of TV shows) that I couldn't find anywhere else. I was/am an avid movie collector, so I often bought when I could, but Netflix was such a great way to rent stuff I didn't know if I wanted to buy or not and an early way to binge-watch TV seasons I even paid for the 4 or 5 discs out at one time option at one point. I probably still have some DVDs from Netflix that I forgot to return (and then reported as "lost") in boxes somewhere. I still buy a lot of physical media, even though I then almost immediately rip it to my Plex server, because I prefer the bitrate and extra features -- I buy digital movies/TV shows too because iTunes always has sales -- but the era of renting a physical disc ended a long time ago for me. Still, seeing this makes me a bit sad, just because of the memories I have of a simpler time and because the selection was just so fantastic (still better than what you can get on streaming for some stuff).

__david__ 4y ago
> As a movie lover, Netflix was a great way to get stuff that was either out of print or sometimes prohibitively expensive (certain Criterion discs, box sets of TV shows) that I couldn't find anywhere else. It was until it wasn't. It was about 10 years ago I first noticed the "unavailable" section of my queue getting bigger. I cancelled my subscription somewhere around 2018 when I completely ran my queue out and still had 10 or 15 movies in the "unavailable" section. Some were even movies that didn't appear to be out of print. In it's heyday I agree, it was the most reliable place to get anything, but towards the end they chopped off their long tail and therefore neutered their usefulness to me…
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  Yeah, that’s when I stopped subscribing to the mail option too. As you say, when they chopped the long tail off, I might as well just buy used discs off of Amazon or eBay.

verisimilitude 4y ago

"We want to be ready when video-on-demand happens. That’s why the company is called Netflix, not DVD-by-Mail." https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-on-how-the-company-was-born.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-on...

nostromo 4y ago

This has to be the biggest pivot I've seen in my life. A truly epic reworking of an entire company from successful business model A to successful business model B -- both wildly successful. And really there was a second pivot too: from streaming platform to original content studio. It's a great reminder to focus on what value you bring to your customers (watching videos), not on any particular business model or way of doing business.

pavon 4y ago
The way I heard it, Netflix started with the intent of being a streaming company but found it more difficult than expected so they pivoted to mailing DVDs, but continued to work on the streaming in the background until the market forces made it viable to pivot back (licensing, residential internet speeds, etc).
- paxys 4y ago
  They may have had an idea for it in their heads, sure, but in the mid 90s (when they started their business) online video streaming was very, very far from reality. This was before the first online stream, before RealPlayer, before Broadcast.com. None of the mainstream video compression standards existed. You couldn't even stream video over ethernet back then. It was only the internet infrastructure upgrades over the next decade which made it feasible for general consumers.
  - johnwalkr 4y ago
    I think the public-facing story of Netflix's start in 1997 (that DVDs came out in 1997 and they looked like they would be easy/cheap to ship). But, the the first version of realvideo was released in early 1997. I remember using it to watch pirated streaming video of Star Wars special edition and South Park season 1 (I just checked and those were both in 1997). It was acceptable quality (slightly worse than VHS or video CD) if you had a cable modem.
m463 4y ago
I have to say, as a current dvd subscriber, that I feel more abandonment than pivot.

donatj 4y ago

NO! I still use and love DVD Netflix. It's the only way to see a ton of things short of piracy.

commandlinefan 4y ago
> short of piracy. I try to be sympathetic to the entertainment industry when it comes to the topic of piracy, but they're really working overtime to make it harder and harder to be…

glonq 4y ago

I credit Valve's Steam for retiring me from software piracy, Spotify for retiring me from music piracy, and Netflix for retiring me from movie piracy. And "the terrible quality of primetime network TV programs" for retiring me from TV piracy ;)

rektide 4y ago
I have hundreds of Steam games & keep buying there but god damn does it make me sad to have traded first-sale rights for this flimsy access to a catalog with no ability to share or resell. I resisted for so long. But now my library is so big. I feel like half the random games I get are only available on steam or other like services anyways.
paxys 4y ago
And yet all of these same companies are responsible for today's reality where you own nothing and can resell nothing. Converting the mainstream commerce system from simple buying and selling of goods into licenses and subscriptions is the biggest scam corporations have ever pulled on the consumer class.
- sowbug 4y ago
  "And yet" implies an unexpected consequence.
- Clamchop 4y ago
  I do feel we get quite a lot in return from this state of affairs.
- deckard1 4y ago
  Coincidentally, Amoeba records put out a really interesting episode of What's In My Bag? today with Seal[1]. At the end (I linked the timestamp) he starts talking about perceived value of owning an album vs. the digital ether. Really worth a watch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WznlFoMd24&t=915s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WznlFoMd24&t=915s
1letterunixname 4y ago

standardUser 4y ago

I no longer own any DVD or Blu-ray drives, or any optical drives at all! And even if I did, I wouldn't want to sit through the title screens or deal with the menus. Too many years of instant playing from streaming services and pirated downloads has spoiled me. And I don't miss the old ways even a little.

bastardoperator 4y ago

TIL it's still going.

stinkytaco 4y ago

What I'll really miss about Netflix DVD is the recommendation system. It adapted to the user rather than showing some pointless average. I graded things from 1-5 with 3 being a movie I liked and when it showed me ratings, it would show me what my expected rating would be. So when I saw a three star movie, I could expect to like it. If I saw a 4 star movie I could expect to really like it. I've not seen anything to replicate that since.

cpeterso 4y ago
I have hundreds of movies rated in my Netflix DVD account. I wish I could export my ratings and import them elsewhere. Any such options? Amazon Prime shows movies’ star ratings (from IMDb?), but didn’t let users rate movies, AFAICT. I’ve found Taste.io https://www.taste.io/ https://www.taste.io/ recommendations to be very good, even with fewer ratings than I gave a Netflix.
- stinkytaco 4y ago
  I have probably a thousand ratings and I know they are allowing a PDF export of your history and ratings. If I could find the right service I wouldn't mind spending a rainy afternoon or sick day migrating them by hand. That would allow me to revisit some of my old ratings and adjust them for my changed tastes. As far as I know there's no export function beyond that, however. I'll give taste.io a spin. It looks like it might be a bit streaming focused. I know letterboxd is where real film fans go, but I'll miss that usually spot on star prediction.
  - luke727 4y ago
    PDF? I exported my Netflix data a couple months ago and I'm pretty sure it was either CSV, XML, or JSON.
- luke727 4y ago
  You can export all your data from Netflix.
- jbaber 4y ago

ignite 4y ago

I don't see a date. Anyone know? I still have this service. Like the other commenters, I have it to get access to content I can't otherwise get. Netflix streaming is, honestly, not full of very interesting titles. The DVD catalog is much more interesting.

sixstringtheory 4y ago
> it will ship its final DVDs to customers on Sept. 29

justinator 4y ago

One word: The Criterion Collection OK, that's three words.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

echelon 4y ago

https://archive.is/gtjDX https://archive.is/gtjDX

retrocryptid 4y ago

They should keep a small DVD by mail service and run it out of the last remaining Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon. That way tourists could come and see DVDs on the shelf and a bunch of people and machines stuffing DVDs in envelopes to see how we all lived in the 90s and early 2000s.

cogogo 4y ago

IIRC when I subscribed to the dvd service 23 years ago or so you could actually browse a library. Maybe it’s an apple tv thing but browsing titles feels near impossible in today’s streaming world - especially on netflix. Side note: would love to know my ltcv - almost an annuity at this point.

rektide 4y ago

Thus we come to the sad end of a tale. A once robust medium where people could own content (yes the MPAA and RIAA will disagree with that statement, but at least users have some right of first sale rights) is dead. A medium where most of the world's good content got published is dead. Now we have ever reshuffling access to a smaller select catalog of stuff. Ever piece of content has to be fueded over by lawyers & rights holders. DVDs and Blurays exist but primarily for mainstream content & republishes of old & smaller content is rare. Netflix has attained their goal of disrupting reliable access to the form's moving pictures.

legitster 4y ago

Remember when Netflix wanted to spin off their DVD service into a standalone company? Before the internet bullied them into cancelling their plans? Well, it turns out they were right. A standalone DVD by mail service with it's own name might have actually been able to hold on. It was a good service that died in the shade of Netflix's brand. As it is, I miss being able to just watch whatever I want and not being locked into Netflix's dire content library. Want to make it through the Best Pictures nominees? Good luck without having 6 different streaming services.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
phone8675309 4y ago
It's very easy if you know how to torrent things

scrum-treats 4y ago

Are local libraries still offering DVD checkouts? May want to renew my card.

subpixel 4y ago

Ah, I recall 1998 when my big idea was a DVD delivery and pickup service for Manhattan, with an online selection tool, utilizing the bicycle messengers that were already delivering items to your office. Thankfully nobody encouraged me and I never wasted blood and treasure on the project ;)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pyuser583 4y ago

I was seriously just about to subscribe to this.

1letterunixname 4y ago

The remaining Blockbuster store enters the chat.

mobilene 4y ago

It's time. But I have fond memories of this service, of which I was an early adopter. My sons and I were among the first to sign up for the disc we could insert into our Nintendo Wii and watch the early Netflix streaming service, too. Netflix has been a clear positive in my family's lives.

readams 4y ago

I was a loyal Netflix disk user for decades. I was in the habit of adding anything I heard of I wanted to watch to my queue; you could even add stuff that hadn't been released yet. I only finally cancelled it during the pandemic when I starting finding that Netflix just stopped bothering to buy a lot of titles that I wanted to watch; lots of stuff that I knew was out on Blu-ray would only be available in DVD, or would not be available at all. And there weren't any new release movies coming out because of the pandemic. So I finally gave up on the disks.

quags 4y ago

I used to get dvd cases, burn the disk after using dvd shrink to make it for on the disks I used then print out a coved and labeled the disk with the name and IMDb rating. I amassed quite a library but there were many I burned and never watched. These eventually moved to binders and have probably been over 15 years now. I wonder if they would still play.

WalterBright 4y ago

This is terrible news. They aren't streaming that disk catalog. It's often the only way to see a particular movie. And I'll miss the full-length snarky Eddie Mueller commentary on the film noir movies (better than the movie!).

paxys 4y ago

End of an era. Netflix pulled off possibly the biggest successful self-disruption of a business in history with online streaming, right alongside Apple with iPod -> iPhone.

anonu 4y ago

Surprised it wasn't done earlier. Shoulda sold to redbox.com. How that business is still in business is beyond me. But I guess not everyone needs streaming. The sum total of streaming providers is probably more than what I used to be pay for cable at this point.

eslaught 4y ago
They tried spinning it off as Quickster some years ago. It was an epic PR failure. I suspect that's why they're throwing in the towel now: they don't want a repeat even if the business could be saved.

radar1310 4y ago

I feel bad for the people and there are a lot of them that have crap internet still to this day.

neilv 4y ago

With the loss of Netflix DVDs, what happens to everyone who wants access to the huge catalog? Or who wants to refer people to obscure titles, even if those people normally aren't interested in a huge catalog? (Are we back to monitoring eBay for used discs of titles we want to watch? Do we end up paying for all the umpteen half-butted streaming services, every time we add another service to get a specific title? Is there some tablescraps streaming service that can pick up all/most obscure titles, to supplement subscribing to one mainstream streaming service rather than all of them?)

dlgeek 4y ago
Purchase on Amazon?

can16358p 4y ago

Netflix still did have a DVD service? Seriously? I know they've started as a physical rental service but I always though they've ended that at least a decade ago, if not more. Can't believe they were still into it in 2023 anyway.

koiz 4y ago

Just when I was thinking of getting it again.

p0w3n3d 4y ago

People recently got accustomed to think "I have all the films in the cloud". However as for my experience the movies I'd like to watch are not available on three major VOD providers I am currently paying for. Moreover movies disappear, especially from Netflix and when I come back to re watch it with my spouse, it's no longer there... I wouldn't call myself a Luddite but I'd like to have a stability here

p0w3n3d 4y ago
Also I'd like to highlight that DVD rental laws are different than streaming laws. If I have a DVD rental, I think that no company can get exclusive rights to rent their DVDs in my country. However I am not sure, since this is simple observation that this exclusivity is a new thing.
prmoustache 4y ago
Yeah, all those moments when you are asking someone "remember that movie? That is a classic. You need to watch it" and then you look for it and it is nowhere to be seen.

Animats 4y ago

That's too bad. The online library is tiny compared to the DVD rental library.

wodenokoto 4y ago

Netflix streaming is an international force to be reckoned with. It has changed how movies and tv series are written and produced. It has changed strategies of major entertainment producers like Disney, HBO and Paramount. Meanwhile Netflix DVD service is a small, national business that had a good run against blockbuster, but it was its sister service that killed blockbuster. I think Netflix was right to try and push it into its own company. That way it had a chance to survive providing a niche service in the states. Of course it’s just a distraction inside Netflix, no matter how nice the upsides are to its loyal followers. This is why we can’t have nice things.

markdown 4y ago

The title is incorrect. It says that Netflix will run its DVD service for another 25 years, but the article says it's ending the service now.

mozman 4y ago

Fun fact: the envelope Netflix uses for DVD was specifically designed for low cost shipping with the US postmaster. One man owns the patent.

damontal 4y ago

It was so much fun filling up your queue after first signing up, finding films you always wanted to see, being able to add entire tv series, changing priorities, etc. It was a unique kind of fun that I can’t seem to reproduce anywhere else these days.

xtiansimon 4y ago

So where is all that equipment going to go? Which is just my way of getting to my wish that my local library could duplicate dvds for loan on demand. Rather, I have to request and wait. Seems ridiculous for digital media.

millerm 4y ago

I was literally going to go back to DVDs. Boooo!

rchaud 4y ago

This move makes sense. Netflix feels like it's 90% "store brand" products these days, and we know how much they dislike paying royalties to other studios.

eatbitseveryday 4y ago

I recently discovered you can call Netflix to ask them to increase your disc plan to at most 8-at-a-time. I bumped mine up to get the last rentals I can until the service disappears. Sad times.