Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos posted on Instagram this morning: “Today, after 25 years, we release our final DVD.” The executive continued, “These iconic red envelopes are so beloved that we’ve sent more than 5 billion of them to cities large and small that otherwise wouldn’t have access to the variety of movies and TV shows we’ve made available.” He’s right, but positioning Netflix as a bastion of accessibility seems a bit simplistic at the moment.
In 2013, Netflix began producing original streaming content, which quickly made it one of the most popular entertainment companies in the world. In subsequent years, physical media fell out of fashion, thanks in part to the dominance of companies like Netflix. At the same time, major streamers have begun culling historically significant titles from their libraries in favor of shiny new originals, making some films harder than ever to find. What’s more, Netflix has consistently refused to give many of its originals their own home media releases, meaning they only exist on Netflix and could become unavailable at any time. Netflix’s DVD service countered this phenomenon in a small but important way, as films that were not available on the Netflix website were sometimes available in print form.
Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the closure, Netflix’s DVD service had been losing money for years before it shut down. The company’s 2022 revenue was about $146 million, a sharp drop from the billion-dollar figure announced in 2012, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The end of the Netflix DVD era is as sad as it is inevitable, but anyone who stuck with a subscription until the very end may still have one last surprise in their inboxes: Netflix has apparently sent some of its users as many as 10 DVDs- surprises from their queue.