Recent and related:

Netflix prepares to send its final red envelope - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37632096 - Sept 2023 (282 comments)

I maintained my disc sub to the bitter end. Although I rarely used it, it was frequently the only way to view many older or more obscure films without an outright full-retail-price purchase, and even then, good luck on availability. I lament its passing and worry very much that it's function as a pseudo-film library for the average person is no longer available anywhere.

I hear the high seas calling...

it's incredible that a million user business wasn't deemed worthy of maintenance. mega corp churn is incredible.

This video brings back lots of nostalgia. I had the chance to tour the shipping facility in Fremont, and see all those machines in action. It was amazing how many disks they could process, and how much innovation was there.

They had machines that could verify the checksum of the disk in three seconds by reading the entire thing with multiple laser heads. They had machines that would OCR the sleeve and mark it for replacement if it was too dirty.

They had printers that could print the entire address on the envelope in about 300ms using multiple offset print heads, so that the sorters could run at full speed.

I wonder what will happen to all those machines. I know that sometimes they allowed bulk mailers to rent the envelope printers/sorters in the afternoons, I wonder if they'll just sell those to bulk mailers.

This is pretty sad, not because of nostalgia, but because the Netflix DVD catalog was oftentimes the only way to watch some movies. I'm not even talking about super obscure movies - I'm talking about movies that weren't necessarily blockbusters, but were moderately successful and had big-name actors.

Many of those movies aren't available on any streaming platform, but also the DVDs are hard to buy, so the Netflix DVD catalog was the only (legal) way to watch them if you wanted to.

The real question is: What was the last DVD shipped?

:-( I've been a subscriber nearly from the start and I've watched hundreds of movies via this service. It is a tragedy simply because so much content is not available any other way or a myriad of disparate streaming services that I am not going to subscribe to. There was a good article about this topic in the WSJ from a few months ago [0]. As the article states:

"This month the Washington Post’s Ty Burr reminds us of some movies we can’t stream: “Cocoon” (1985), directed by Ron Howard, “Short Cuts” (1993) by Robert Altman, “New York, New York” (1977) by Martin Scorsese, “Henry & June” (1990) by Philip Kaufman and “Silkwood” (1983) by Mike Nichols."

The only silver lining is I am probably going to start exploring the Kanopy catalog more which may be available via your local public library.

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/dvds-demise-leaves-many-films-g...

Is anyone else unreasonably upset that they didn't reveal which the last shipped disc actually was?

I tried to make a graph of the total number of discs shipped from the timeline, eventually I got lazy and just did a search to see if someone else already had that graph. Instead, I found this graph that breaks down the revenues by DVDs versus streaming:

https://www.statista.com/chart/29775/netflix-revenue/

Well, who got the last DVD? Do they have to return it? What movie was it?

I wonder if it's possible to buy any extra stock DVDs/BDs that Netflix may have left over.

For me this is like when someone famous yet really old dies and the first thought is, "Wow, they were still alive?"

I'm honestly surprised there was a viable DVD business that lasted this long.

I do actually miss some of the moments of strolling through my neighborhood video store with my brother and discovering staff-pick movies an algorithm would never put in front of me today. Heck, there were some days where the browsing of movies on shelves was more satisfying than watching the actual pick at home later.

Neflix DVDs became a total lifesaver for me when I originally binged BSG. I became a solid fan at the time.

I am pretty sure I still have some dvd's and/or blu-rays somewhere that got included in a move and never unpacked... Now they will just become historical artifacts of a bygone physical-media era

Sad day honestly. Been a long time subscriber, almost sure since the beginning.

The variety is just larger than the streaming platforms. And to be honest while they tracked the DVDs you rented you never felt you had this bird on your back watching your every move.

On streaming you might try something, get through half way of it, give up, and next thing you know the platform thinks it’s your most favorite thing, and starts shoveling “things you may like” while thing you hated sits in the “continue watching” for the next two months.

So, anyway, happy customer. Sorry to see it go.

Back in the day, when being a cable cutter was a badge of a pioneer - I have to admit that in all the excitement I never realized that switching to streaming digital content means never having access* to “your collection” - available catalog always changes. Doesn’t matter how old the content is - someone is always busy thinking of a ways to monetize it, which usually translates to it not being available when you want to watch it.

* unless one blackbeards it

It’s crazy that we saw the birth and demise of a technology in our lifetime.

This was pretty much inevitable ever since 2016, when they expanded from a few (mostly English-speaking) countries to basically the whole world, with a few exceptions.

I wonder if Netflix will sell their older dvds.

I remember when video stores went under, I brought a lot of vhs tapes, a few that never got launched on dvd or blueray.

What happens to all of the remaining DVDs? Surely Netflix has enough to fill a warehouse or two?

'Please don't send those back, as it costs us extra monies. Kthxbyeee!'