End of an era! Netflix to end DVD service after mailing 5.2 billion discs over 25 years
Netflix's decision still marks the end of an era.
Streaming giant Netflix has some bad news for fans of physical media. The company is finally doing away with its original business model that turned it into an entertainment giant. The company says that it will no longer mail movie and TV show DVDs to subscribers after 25 years. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said, “Those iconic red envelopes changed the way people watched shows and movies at home — and they paved the way for the shift to streaming. To everyone who ever added a DVD to their queue or waited by the mailbox for a red envelope to arrive: thank you.” He also went on to say that the company sent out 5.2 billion DVDs over a quarter of a century.
The decision really does not come as a surprise. Streaming is the default mode of entertainment for most viewers. However, the DVD service has remained a niche option for those who prefer the tactile feel of physical media, and for those with slow or unreliable internet connections. Also, possessing an actual disc means that you own that movie or that TV series, and as long as the media is not corrupted, it will play for you. A lot of the content on the streaming service, however, is licenced and can disappear any time.
The decision still marks the end of an era.
The news comes after a mixed year for the company in which it both lost subscribers for the first time in its streaming history, and also bounced back strongly. It gained 7 million subscribers to cap off the end off 2022 on a positive note. As per The Guardian, the service has 232.5 million subscribers.
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Still, as more and more players are vying for space and subscriber retention, the company is going to face even bigger challenges in the future. The execs have employed a variety of measures to cut costs like curbs on password-sharing (that is already in effect in several countries), lower-priced and advertisement-supported plans, and so on.