You want to rent a DVD from Netflix? Bummer, they don’t do that anymore

September 29, 2023, will go down in history as the day the last rented DVD from Netflix is mailed. “But the red envelope remains an enduring symbol of our love of entertainment”, reads a post from the official X account for Netflix over at X.

There are three separate social media posts from Netflix regarding the DVD-renting ending. The aforementioned one features a picture that contains the “DVDs will always be in our DNA” slogan on a billboard.

The second one is picture-featuring (pun intended) as well, with the image being a collage from multiple movie posters. “Netflix has shipped 5.2 billion DVDs over the last 25 years – here’s a timeline of the most rented movies throughout those years”, reads the tweet. There are iconic titles, like The Great Lebowski, Gladiator, The Departed, Dunkirk, and more. Here it is:

The third post is a carefully edited 73-second long video that shows the ins and outs of the DVD-renting empire in the last 25 years (starting in 1998 with the shipping of its first disc, Beetlejuice) but shot in the manner of a Christmas Hallmark movie.

What the hell is even that – a DVD?

We’ve come full circle now. Being raised on online streaming platforms, there surely are many young people today who literally have never seen a DVD, as many people didn’t either back in the 90s.

Since we’re talking about movies, there’s a memorable scene from the 1984 Wolfgang Petersen heart-warming classic The Neverending Story that comes to mind. A boy is being chased by bullies and manages to escape them by accidentally getting into a dusty, gloomy bookshop. The owner is an elderly grouchy fella who automatically refuses to believe a kid could enter a bookshop willfully. In a rather short, but cynical tirade he tries to kick the boy out with words:

“Here we just sell small rectangular objects. They’re called books. They require a little effort on your part and make no bee-beep-beeps. On your way please.”

So, next time some 16-year-old is curious what DVDs are, you can answer that they did in fact use to make “bee-beep-beeps”, but required a little effort – mainly to walk to your postbox to get that red Netflix envelope.