Netflix formally mentioned goodbye to its DVD rental service.
The multibillion-dollar streaming service introduced it has shipped its last DVD on Friday, Sept. 29, marking the tip of the corporate’s 25-year run as a DVD lending firm.
In April, Netflix notified the general public and its buyer base that it could ship its last discs earlier than the tip of 2023.
Netflix began as a DVD rental firm in 1998 and shipped films and sequence to properties, which enticed prospects who not wished to journey to video rental shops in particular person.
“For 25 years, we redefined how individuals watched movies and sequence at house, and shared the thrill as they opened their mailboxes to our iconic crimson envelopes,” Netflix wrote on Friday.
“It’s the tip of an period, however the DVD enterprise constructed our basis for the years to come back – giving members unprecedented selection and management, all kinds of titles to select from and the liberty to observe as a lot as they need,” the corporate continued.
Clients who relied on Netflix’s rental service – DVD.com – will not be capable of place orders on the platform.
In gentle of Netflix’s last DVD cargo, the corporate printed a listing of info and statistics on its rental service.
The primary DVD it shipped was “Beetlejuice,” which was mailed on March 10, 1998, in response to the streaming large.
Netflix claims it shipped crimson envelopes to 239,000 mailboxes all through its run.
The corporate reportedly reached a million DVD rental subscribers in 2003 and grew its subscriber base to 20 million by 2011.
Netflix additionally claims the corporate shipped its 5 billionth DVD in 2019.
All through its two-plus-decade run, Netflix’s DVD rental service has supplied its buyer base “20 major genres” and “530 subgenres” to select from.
The information of Netflix’s shuttered DVD rental service comes 9 years, eight months and 17 days after Blockbuster – a former video rental competitor of Netflix – closed its corporate-owned shops.
Netflix began its streaming enterprise division in 2007.
As a preferred streaming service, Netflix has roughly 238.four million paid subscribers worldwide, in response to the corporate’s second-quarter earnings report for 2023.