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 Christm

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).