It is the end of an era. On Tuesday, ahead of its first-quarter 2023 earnings report, Netflix announced that it would be discontinuing its DVD rental service this fall. The company said that it would send out its last iconic red envelope on Sept. 29, 2023, 25 years after the service launched and changed the entire home-viewing landscape.

Though the company morphed into the world’s leading streaming service, it had held onto its direct-mail roots throughout, often offering access to movies via DVD that subscribers couldn't get on the company’s streaming platform. However, as the era of physical media is continuing to wind down, and the focus on streaming has overtaken all of entertainment, this move seemed inevitable.

The venture’s death knell might have come earlier this year when the company reported thatthe service's revenue dropped by 50% in 2022. In 2020 and 2021, perhaps augmented by the earlier days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Netflix’s DVD rental program generated $200 million in revenue. However, in 2022, that bottomed out at $100 million, an infinitesimally small drop in the company’s $5.6 billion profit pool from the year.

At one point, Netflix’s DVD catalog included over 100,000 titles as recently as 2019, however, that has been exchanged for the roughly 7,000 shows and movies that are now available via the company’s streaming service.

As content continues to move back and forth between streaming services and different shows and movies are seemingly dropped every week, the allure of Blurays and DVDs has continued to be the reliability of the physical media. The other benefit is all of the extra hours of bonus content, behind-the-scenes footage, filmmakers’ commentaries, and more that are not often included in streaming releases. So, if you want to take advantage of the final five months of Netflix’s DVD era, you can visit DVD.com to get one last red envelope. Plans start at $9.99 for a single DVD at a time and go up to $19.99 for three discs.

Just as Netflix’s direct-mail DVD business killed Blockbuster, Netflix’s streaming business killed its direct-mail business.

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Netflix

Netflix is a leading subscription-based video streaming service that offers on-demand access to an extensive library of over 3,000 movies, 2,000+ TV shows, and a growing collection of acclaimed Netflix originals. Renowned for producing groundbreaking content, Netflix has become a cultural powerhouse with hit originals like “Stranger Things,” “Wednesday,” “Squid Game,” “The Crown,” “Tiger King,” “Bridgerton,” “The Witcher,” and “Black Mirror.”

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The platform constantly updates its catalog, introducing fresh content alongside timeless classics and international hits. Netflix’s commitment to storytelling has also earned critical acclaim, with award-winning exclusives such as “Roma,” “Marriage Story,” “The Power of the Dog,” “Mank,” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” In 2023, their animated film “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, further solidifying Netflix’s reputation for high-quality content.

Recently, Netflix has expanded beyond standard movies and TV titles with the addition of video podcasts, and is also exploring a digital store that would offer third-party streamers within the app.

Netflix offers three plans – stream on 2 devices in HD with the “Standard with Ads” ($8.99) plan, on 2 devices in HD with the “Standard” ($19.99) plan, and 4 devices in up to 4K on the “Premium” ($26.99) plan.

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