Netflix DVD Rental Revenue Dropped by 50% in 2022; Is the End Approaching for Outdated Service?
The wizened old-timers among us may remember when Netflix was not the streaming giant that it is today, but instead was a humble DVD rental service. For the first ten years of its existence following its founding in 1997, Netflix was just a place where you could rent DVDs by mail for a monthly subscription fee. But even fewer people know that Netflix actually still does DVD rentals by mail, though the number of people taking advantage of that option seems to be rapidly dropping.
While it mainly boasted about the success of its much more popular digital programming, as Netflix released its earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2022, the company shared details of the further decline of the already endangered species of DVD rental. The company’s revenue for its by-mail rental service fell to $100 million in 2022, a steep decline from the $200 million earned in 2020 and 2021.
While this precipitous fall likely won’t make a dent in the media empire’s overall economic situation, considering that its revenue, operating profit, and membership growth all exceeded internal expectations in Q4, it appears to be more of a sign that the era of physical media is continuing to approach extinction, rather than something more existential for Netflix. Other physical media rental companies, such as Redbox, are already looking to pivot their userbase to digital streaming. The drastic decline in the already modest revenue that Netflix was bringing in from DVD rentals is yet another nail in the coffin of the outdated DVD-by-mail rental model.
This is not to say that Netflix is ceasing its physical media rentals, at least not for now. And for a savvy consumer, the rentals still have their uses, allowing you to access titles during the window of time when they are otherwise only available to streaming via rental or purchase.
Obsoletion eventually comes for us all, and it seems that Netflix’s DVD rental service’s time is coming quickly. With such a steep drop in revenue, and the fact that Netflix nearly never mentions that the service is still active, one has to wonder how long its DVD-rental program is for this world. If it were to go away, it would be a sad moment for those with nostalgia for their time in the 2000s receiving movies in the mail, but the inexorable march of progress must go on. Streaming is the future, and the future is here.
Netflix
Netflix is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 3,000+ movies, 2,000+ TV Shows, and Netflix Originals like Stranger Things, Squid Game, The Crown, Tiger King, and Bridgerton. They are constantly adding new shows and movies. Some of their Academy Award-winning exclusives include Roma, Marriage Story, Mank, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.