For those who don’t know, Netflix started out just as a DVD rental service. Before dominating the streaming market, the company was running a traditional DVD rental business based on mailing DVDs to customers, who could keep them for as long as they wanted before returning them by mail.
While it may seem lame today, Netflix’s DVD rental service was revolutionary at the time, and it laid the foundation for the company’s future success.
Sadly, the company has recently announced it will be closing down the service after 25 years of operation.
In a statement, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos reveals that this is because the business has continued to shrink, making it increasingly difficult to keep it going in this market.
He further reveals that they will be shipping out the final orders on September 29, 2023.
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.
It certainly comes as no surprise to see the streaming giant let go of this service, considering how it has grown and expanded its streaming service over the past years since launching in 2007. The service is now available globally, and as of the fourth quarter of 2022, it had nearly 231 million paid subscribers worldwide.
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