Netflix DVD Subscribers Mourn Loss of Service After 25 Years

After 25 years, Netflix is closing down its DVD service. Fans will be forced to say goodbye to the iconic red envelopes, with the final discs shipped on September 29.

The distributor said dwindling orders led to the service's demise—which is no surprise, considering Netflix is the market leader in streaming. Still, DVD members are in mourning, with X, formerly Twitter, user @sometimes_ant comparing the closure to "losing a friend."

"Very, very sad that this is my last week with Netflix DVD (yes it still exists) after 13 years of being a subscriber," said Katelyn Kelley.

"As a lover of physical media and movies, #Netflix was a great service. I shall miss it," wrote Denis Sheehan.

"Netflix has shipped me my last DVD," said @Scorriganus. "Maybe I should put it in a glass box with painted lettering that says 'break during extreme boredom and all the streaming shows suck.'"

To commemorate the occasion, Netflix shared a farewell message on the company blog.

"For 25 years, we redefined how people watched films and series at home, and shared the excitement as they opened their mailboxes to our iconic red envelopes. It's the end of an era, but the DVD business built our foundation for the years to come – giving members unprecedented choice and control, a wide variety of titles to choose from and the freedom to watch as much as they want. Today, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for watching. Thank you for loving our red envelopes, sharing countless movie nights with us at home and being part of our final season."

The streamer also shared a timeline of memorable milestones from the company's DVD service, revealing that the first DVD ever shipped in 1998 was Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (perhaps fitting, given that the prolific director gave the streamer one of their biggest hits last year with the equally spooky Wednesday). The first Blu-ray shipped was Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Terminator in 2006; Schwarzenegger is now also in the Netflix fold as the executive producer and star of action series FUBAR—as well as being touted as the streamer's "Chief Action Officer" in promotional materials.

By 2005, Netflix was mailing 1 million discs daily, which, if stacked, would've equaled the size of three Eiffel Towers. The most shipped discs in a single day came in 2011, with 4.9 million. By the time the DVD mailing service ended, Netflix had shipped over 5 billion discs. Netflix also revealed that the only time the service ever used a non-red envelope for a mailer was to commemorate the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, turning the packaging green.

Several users posted pictures and videos of themselves by mailboxes, posting back their final DVD rentals, while Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph wrote a tribute to the service that started it all.

"On April 14th, 1998, a dozen of us working out of an old bank building with dirty green carpet mailed out the first Netflix DVD. Later this week, a similar size team will mail the last," he posted to X.

"We envisioned the DVD service to be the booster rocket that would put our longer-term business into orbit. But miraculously, the booster achieved an orbit of its own. And only now, its work finally done, will it drift quietly back to earth."

When Randolph and Reed Hastings launched Netflix in 1997, the transition to streaming was still a decade away. The mail-order DVD service started with 30 employees and less than 1,000 movies. The idea took a while to get off the ground, but as the popularity of DVDs rose, so did Netflix's business.

After two years, Netflix began offering a subscription service, where users could rent as many DVDs as they liked for $6.99 a month. Along with unlimited access to Netflix's catalog, members were not charged late fees—which proved to be a game-changer. By 2001, Netflix had more than a million subscribers, generating over $80 million in revenue by 2006.

Netflix launched its "Watch Now" streaming service in 2007, allowing members to watch a limited number of films online as part of their subscription. Although the choice was small to begin with, by 2010 Netflix had 7,000 movies available to stream, along with over 500 TV series, with online views outpacing DVD rentals.

In a statement announcing the closure of its DVD rental service in April, Netflix said: "Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members but as the business continues to shrink that's going to become increasingly difficult.

"We feel so privileged to have been able to share movie nights with our DVD members for so long, so proud of what our employees achieved and excited to continue pleasing entertainment fans for many more decades to come."

Netflix currently has over 238 million subscribers worldwide, with over 17,000 titles available to watch. These include the streamer's original content, with hits including Stranger Things, The Crown and The Witcher.

However, an exclusive poll conducted by Redfield and Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek found that 52 percent of users said they would "boycott" the service if it created content that they disagreed with, with "political content" subscribers' biggest bugbear.

Check out the Netflix's DVD timeline below:

Update 9/29/2023,10:47 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include Netflix's commemorative timeline and farewell blog post.