After 25 years of renting out physical DVDs to customers, Netflix finally bids farewell to their rental business. And it comes as no surprise since even the global sales for DVDs and Blu-rays have been gradually dwindling over the past several years, with a 19 percent decrease from 2021 to 2022. The streaming behemoth announced last September 29th that the last shipments of DVDs will be done on that day, marking the close of that chapter for DVD rentals.
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Netflix first started shipping DVDs in 1998 with Beetlejuice, and since then, they have shipped 5.2 billion movies to over 40 million customers. Over the years, as consumer preferences shifted toward streaming, Netflix also shifted gears, offering movies and TV shows on-demand, later producing and distributing their own content on the platform.
Nowadays, video on-demand has simply taken over the market, and as streaming services continue to grow, we might soon shelve DVDs and Blu-rays along with other technologies from a by-gone era. Disney’s move to stop production of DVDs and Blu-rays in Australia is one tell-tale sign that the industry has decided to steer toward digital distribution, which makes sense from a business perspective as it costs less but gives a much wider reach.
However, one good thing did come about this as Netflix also announced that whoever still has rentals in their possession would get to keep them. Furthermore, they may even request up to 10 more movies simply so that the company can finally get rid of all the remaining stock. So, for anybody who still would love to get physical copies of their favorite movies, go and check to see if Netflix still has a copy and request them right away. From Engadget.
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Source: neatorama