End days nearing for DVD-by-mail

Netflix service users waning

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Netflix’s trailblazing DVD-by-mail rental service has been relegated as a relic in the age of video streaming, but there is still a steady — albeit shrinking — audience of diehards like Amanda Konkle who are happily paying to receive those discs in the iconic red-and-white envelopes.

“When you open your mailbox, it’s still something you actually want instead of just bills,” said Konkle, a resident of Savannah, Ga., who has been subscribing to Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service since 2005.

It’s a small pleasure that Konkle and other still-dedicated DVD subscribers enjoy but it’s not clear for how much longer. Netflix declined to comment for this story but during a 2018 media event, co-founder and co-Chief Executive Officer of Netflix Reed Hastings suggested the DVD-by-mail service might close around 2023.

When — not if — it happens, Netflix will shut down a service that has shipped more than 5 billion discs across the U.S. since its inception nearly a quarter century ago.

“The DVD-by-mail business has bequeathed the Netflix that everyone now knows and watches today,” Marc Randolph, Netflix’s original CEO, said during an interview at a coffee shop located across the street from the post office in Santa Cruz, Calif.

The 110-year-old post office has become a landmark in Silicon Valley history because it’s where Randolph mailed a Patsy Cline CD to Hastings in 1997 to test whether a disc could be delivered through the U.S. Postal Service without being damaged.

The disc arrived at Hastings’ home unblemished, prompting the duo in 1998 to launch a DVD-by-mail rental website that they always knew would be supplanted by even more convenient technology.

With Netflix’s successful streaming service, it might be easy to assume that anyone still paying to receive DVDs through the mail is a technophobe or someone living in a remote part of the U.S. without reliable internet access. But subscribers say they stick with the service so they can rent movies that are otherwise difficult to find on streaming services.

Netflix no longer discloses the size of its DVD library, but the subscribers interviewed by the AP all reported the narrowing selection is making it more difficult to find famous films and popular TV series that once were routinely available on the service. Instead, Netflix now sorts requests for titles such as the first season of the award-winning “Ted Lasso” series — a release that can be purchased on DVD — into a “saved” queue, signaling it may decide to stock it in the future, depending on demand.

Knowing the end is in sight, Randolph said he will lament the death of the DVD service he brought to life while taking comfort its legacy will survive.

“Netflix’s DVD business was part-and-parcel of who Netflix was and still is,” he said. “It’s embedded in the company’s DNA.”