The DVDs-in-the-mail version of Netflix is finally going away after 26 years

For more than a decade, Netflix has been known primarily as a streaming-video service. But the original version of Netflix was a much slower form of video-on-demand: red envelopes stuffed with physical DVDs, delivered via the postal service.

Netflix announced yesterday that it's finally ending the discs-in-the-mail version of Netflix on September 29, 2023, just over 26 years after the company was founded. DVD returns will be accepted until October 27.

"After an incredible 25 year run, we've made the difficult decision to wind down at the end of September," reads a Netflix FAQ page explaining the decision. "Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that's going to become increasingly difficult. Making 2023 our Final Season allows us to maintain our quality of service through the last day and go out on a high note."

Further Reading

Netflix originally launched as a pay-per-rental service in 1997, as DVDs supplanted bulky VHS tapes and home DVD players became increasingly common. In 1999, the company shifted to the subscription model it would continue using for the next two decades, allowing users to set up a rental queue and sending out discs as they became available; different subscription tiers would allow you to have more discs rented out at once. This business model--along with Redbox rental kiosks--was a major factor in the collapse of Blockbuster Video and other brick-and-mortar rental stores. (Having to explain how all of this worked makes me feel immeasurably ancient, by the way.)

The streaming version of Netflix was originally launched as an add-on to the disc-mailing service in early 2007 before becoming its own dedicated subscription separate from the DVD business. By the end of the 2000s, streaming had already overtaken the mail version of Netflix in popularity, and by late 2010, the company began offering a separate streaming-only subscription tier.

The move was received negatively at the time--it was effectively a price hike for those who wanted to continue streaming while also benefitting from the larger library of movies available on DVD. But that streaming service continued to grow in popularity until 2022, when two consecutive quarters of falling subscriber numbers set off an ongoing round of belt-tightening at the company. That has included quicker cancellations for many of its original shows and an ongoing crackdown on password-sharing outside of the same household. For US Netflix users, the company plans to introduce those extra fees for password-sharing sometime in the "second quarter" of this year.

The only major change Netflix has tried to make to its DVD service since splitting it from the streaming service was an ill-fated rebrand attempt in 2011. "Qwikster" would have been spun off from Netflix and run as an independent unit, and it would also have expanded into video game rentals (games used to come on discs, too, once upon a time). The Qwikster rebrand was abandoned after just three weeks, and the plan to expand into game rentals was laid to rest just a few weeks after that.

Netflix says it has shipped over 5 billion discs to subscribers since 1997. Current subscribers will be able to download a PDF copy of their rental history for posterity any time between now and October 27, when that data will be deleted (along with your mailing address and other data related to the DVD version of Netflix).