What DVDs Gave Us
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Netflix is shutting down its movie-by-mail service at the end of next month. Movie lovers will lose more than a fond memory.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The Red Envelope
The bouncing DVD logo is my Proustian madeleine. I am transported back to 2005, in the living room of a friend’s house; we are laid out on sleeping bags watching Pirates of the Caribbean; soon, we will plug in a karaoke machine and sing power ballads by Pink.
That year was the peak of the DVD era; the industry was at the time. Since then, DVDs have declined in favor of streaming platforms, but Netflix has quietly maintained its mail-order-DVD-subscription service, sending in red envelopes over the years. The estimated that 1.1 million to 1.3 million people were subscribed to the service earlier this year (compared with more than 230 million subscribers to its streaming service). But now the DVD days are truly ending: The final ship date for Netflix’s discs is next month, and the company this week that subscribers can keep their last shipment of DVDs and opt-in for a chance to receive 10 additional ones. Netflix reportedly hasn’t yet figured out what to do with the rest of the DVDs in its possession.
