Netflix Shutting Down Its DVD Rental Program Is a Major Blow to Accessibility and Availability
Way back in the late ’90s, Netflix began life as a DVD mail-order rental service. This was innovative on many levels and was beneficial for many different groups of people including those who didn’t have time to stop in at their local Blockbuster, those that were housebound, and those in remote areas that didn’t have access to the expansive video stores like the ones in more populated areas. However, over the years, as the company has grown into the world’s largest streaming service — and the entertainment world has changed with it — that original DVD rental business has become less and less important to the company.
Following a 50% drop in DVD rental revenue in 2022, the company announced the imminent closure of the service — now found at DVD.com — for Sept. 29, 2023. Of course, for many, the service became obsolete when streaming subscriptions became much easier, with video delivered directly to your TV or computer. However, there are many people who still find such a service invaluable.
For the majority of the United States, streaming services are a part of everyday life. We have our high-speed internet service, turn on our TVs, and ta-da, our favorite shows and movies are right there in front of us. However, the Pew Research Center estimated that in 2021 only 70% of rural American households had access to broadband internet and that number had only risen by 9% from the previous five years. Therefore services that deliver DVDs can be essential in those areas of the country. With the announcement that Netflix will close its rental service in the fall that only leaves Redbox which offers a similar service.
This means that now, for those without reliable broadband internet, their ability to watch recent movies and TV shows at home is severely hampered. Video stores are all but obsolete, leaving only rental kiosks as a way to bring DVDs and Blu-ray discs home without buying them. And while RedBox and other similar companies try to make this as convenient as possible, the loss of Netflix’s direct-mail program is still a major blow for some individuals.
In addition to those without reliable, high-speed internet, older people also take advantage of the direct-mail rental service for a number of reasons. First, while streaming has become the default mode of entertainment delivery for most Americans, the older generations are the least likely to be on board. And then when you factor in the individuals that are home-bound or just less capable of leaving the house for the purposes of renting a DVD, not having the red envelopes delivered to their doors is extremely disappointing. Given the $100 million drop in DVD revenue that Netflix experienced in 2022, it makes sense from a financial standpoint for the company to end the program, as The Streamable predicted earlier this year, but it is still a blow to many people.
Beyond the accessibility issues that mail-order DVDs helped to solve, the Netflix red envelopes were also a valuable way for viewers to work around the complicated licensing agreements that make streaming difficult to untangle. Often, because there is so much less competition in the physical media business than in streaming, customers would be able to rent DVDs from Netflix for blockbuster movies that not only weren’t on the company’s streaming service, but weren’t on any streaming service at all.
Paramount+ didn’t debut “Top Gun: Maverick” until Dec. 22, but Netflix DVD subscribers were able to rent it in October. The variety of titles available via the DVD program also dwarfed that of Netflix’s streaming library, for similar reasons. As recently as 2019, customers could select from up to 100,000 different DVDs available from Netflix, while on streaming, the total available to subscribers in the United States is roughly around 7,000 today.
This discrepancy underscores the issues that many people have been discussing with the rise of streaming. As physical media — DVDs, CDs, video game discs and cartridges — are replaced by streaming alternatives, our options become more and more limited. As we’ve seen over the past year, companies are regularly removing titles that — while beloved by small audiences — underperform and are no longer financially valuable. This leaves fans with no way watch the shows and movies.
And even if properties are available, viewers have to subscribe to, or have access to, up to a dozen or so different streaming services in order to maintain access to all of the titles they once were able to have on a shelf in their home.
For example, currently available to rent from Netflix on DVD are “1883,” “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” and “Star Trek: Picard,” which stream on Paramount+; “Yellowstone,” “M3GAN,” and “Puss In Boots: The Last Wish,” which stream on Peacock; “Succession,” “The White Lotus,” and “House of the Dragon” from HBO Max; and “A Man Called Otto” and “The Whale” which aren’t yet available via a subscription streaming service. There are literally thousands of other examples like this littered throughout the Netflix DVD library.
While most consumers have left DVDs and Netflix’s rental program in the past, it still played an important role for many people for a variety of reasons and its shuttering is a loss for the entire entertainment world. While there have been reports that RedBox's parent company is interested in purchasing the operation, there does not appear to have been any progress on that front in the few days since the announcement was made.
Whether Netflix ultimately shuts the service down in September as planned, or there is some sort of reprieve, having offline ways to enjoy your favorite content will remain a valuable part of media consumption for years to come, even if only to a slowly dwindling number of people.
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.