Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix’s famous red envelopes are headed to the recycling bin of history. The company announced the shutdown of the DVD-by-mail business Tuesday ahead of its first-quarter 2023 earnings report.
Since 1998, according to the company, it has mailed out over 5 billion DVD and Blu-ray rentals to subscribers across the U.S.
The final Netflix DVDs will be shipped out on Sept. 29, 2023, according to co-CEO Ted Sarandos. “After an incredible 25 year run, we’ve decided to wind down DVD.com later this year,” Sarandos wrote in a blog post on the company’s site. “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.
So we want to go out on a high, and will be shipping our final discs on September 29, 2023.” “From the beginning, our members loved the choice and control that direct-to-consumer entertainment offered: the wide variety of the titles and the ability to binge watch entire series,” Sarandos wrote.
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