Netflix announced on Tuesday that it would "wind-down" its DVD service after 25 years in operation. Netflix's service that handles that legacy portion of the business, DVD.com, will ship the last disc on Sept. 29, 2023.
The DVD service is what made Netflix a household name. It was innovative at the time to allow users to select DVDs from the company's website and have them sent directly to homes in a steady stream of entertainment.
Early in 2000, the company's founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph tried to sell their company to Blockbuster for $50 million. That deal never happened.
The company went on to allow customers to order in shows and films without having to take a trip to the video rental store.
Today Netflix is a streaming behemoth with subscribers streaming entertainment around the world. In the first quarter of this year, Netflix added 1.75 million subscribers, ending the period with 232.5 customers, the Wall Street Journal reported.
It was a slower pace than during the pandemic, but still significant given the company recently rolled out new limitations on password-sharing.
Netflix said that its DVD business "led to our first foray into original programming," a part of Netflix that is commonplace with streaming.
The company shipped its first DVD on March 10,1998. It was a DVD with the movie "Beetlejuice" on it. The company has shipped more than 5.2 billion DVDs, with the most popular title overall being "The Blind Side."
Netflix has boasted of around 40 million unique subscribers to its DVD service "over the years."
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