Netflix will stop selling DVDs
Netflix is exiting the previously-viewed DVD market. In a blog post yesterday, the company said it would stop selling DVDs to its members as of November 30 to focus on DVD rentals and streaming video. “Our core business is delivering great movie rentals to you on DVD by mail and instantly to the computer and TV,” a Netflix representative says in the post. “So we’ve decided it makes sense for us to focus exclusively on that.” According to comments on the blog post, some members are unhappy about the decision, and many are concerned that Netflix will eventually get out of the disc business entirely–even for rentals.
Netflix’s streaming service already is popular with PC users, and just last week, Netflix expanded that streaming service to Mac users. Still, despite a bigger push into the streaming market and the service’s rising popularity, it seems very unlikely that Netflix would give up on its physical disc rental service anytime soon. This is especially true given recent statements by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings about the importance of Blu-ray to the company’s future.
Source: Washington Post
Comments(9)
Who cares?
I care… And if they get rid of physical media, I will cancel my subscription unless they offer an unlimited online rental plan for about the same amount.
I care too. I get 2 dvd’s at a time, rip them and drop them in the mailbox by 5pm. I then get two more dvd’s two days later. I’m averaging about 7 DVD’s a week that I add to my home movie collection for 14 bux a month. For 50 cents a DVD that’s not bad.
Physical media is the best. I own it!
@4 – Yes, you do indeed own it … but as it degrades in your collection (yes folks, DVD’s all degrade meaning your precious physical media WILL NOT LAST), you will realise that all you actually own after a while is a lump of useless plastic and aluminium, nothing else.
Step up to online content streaming, or even D/lding your content to physical storage i.e external HDD’s or your PC, then stream it when needed via media box to your TV.
Welcome to the 21st century Alexander
@5 (sweetchuk):
I think the issue is more that while DVD media may degrade, that’s just one DVD that’s gone. If a harddrive fails however, that’s a media collection gone. Yes, you can do raid arrays to backup your data but that costs more money and takes more technical know-how than just getting a copy of a DVD and throwing it into the DVD player whenever you wanna watch it. To each, his own.
ahhh well said both #4 and #5.
Come on people. Digital is the way the world is going. Stop holding on to your DVD players. Soon everything is going to be streaming and there’s not going to be any more discs for you to rent. I don’t know why people insist on holding on to the past, just get over it. Yes, hard drives fail, and you lose much more than you do on just a single DVD, but it’s the way the world’s going so just get over it. Bluray may still be very abundant for years as a very successful way to market high definition video, but as for SD movies and TV shows streaming and downloading is the way to go. And probably once we all have Mbit/s or Gbit/s connections we’ll be streaming high def content as well. As far as raid arrays, they aren’t that complicated really. And you don’t even have to do that. External hard drives are getting really cheap now-a-days, as well as internals. I just saw a 750GB western digital drive on sale for $60. All you have to do is simply back your collection up on that and keep it updated. If your other one ever goes bad just replace it and make the new one the back up drive. It’s really not as complicated as you think it is.
Yeah, but that streaming crap is going to ruin the collectability of movies. A lot of people like to collect stuff, thats why those dvd’s all have fancy covers and packageing.Who the hell wants something you cant look at or even touch. People can already get everything they want to watch over the internet, look at the site you are posting on. What about buying and owning the actual DVD!!?? I can already download and save to harddrive, hi def DVD’s…….Fing all day long.I WANT THE REAL DVD!
@8
Explain something to me dude, By your logic, if this is the way the world is going and we should just accept it, Than why are vinyl records still sooooo popular and a highly sought after collectable music medium? I own a bunch of them. I still buy them. People still make them.
Based on your logic….shouldnt vinyl records have been eradicated long ago with the invent of cassette and C.D.?????
The reason they are still here ….is becouse humans like to collect things.This fact will never change with the times.
Streaming audio will ruin the collectability of films. That is not a good thing in my opinion.