it's incredible that a million user business wasn't deemed worthy of maintenance. mega corp churn is incredible.
Lots more logistics involved with physical compared to streaming. Time is zero sum, you they could of had a small profit off the 1 million users but they probably found the focusing on other lines of business would be more profitable or less of a hassle.
you're not wrong, but it's just crazy to me. They could've decided to do just 4K UHD Blu-Rays and charged $30 a month. There are niche's to be found. Like you said the opportunity cost is huge and so here we are.
From an outsiders perspective it's just incredible, though.
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…
At a certain point of DRM-encumbrance, media piracy is the only way to preserve media.
This is why I keep a handful of old torrents alive in perpetuity.
If you’re looking for it, just be patient for me to turn on my client every few weeks.
it's incredible that a million user business wasn't deemed worthy of maintenance. mega corp churn is incredible.
Netflix DVDs could be ripped and shared via P2P with ease. Netflix DRM playback is harder to deal with.
Is this true? A friend tells me that torrents for new episodes of ongoing stream-only shows are typically up within minutes to hours of being released.
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...
I got my last one yesterday. I will be off to ebay and a few other stores to get them. On ebay there are people who sell 100 dvd sets for 100 bucks.
Wonder how many people dumped their collection because 'i can always get it from netflix'.
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...
> I hear the high seas calling...
I found that the high seas are only good for popular films, and that obscure films are very hard to find. I've had better luck at the library.
it's incredible that a million user business wasn't deemed worthy of maintenance. mega corp churn is incredible.
This is a meaningless statement without knowing if it was profitable. If I started a streaming service that gave you $100 when you signed up I would get a million users. So do you want to buy that business from me?
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...
Genuinely curious whether there were films you found on the DVD service that were inaccessible via your local library loan system (if you are in the US that is, did Netflix ever do the DVD service outside the US though?) Good library systems have a good percentage of DVD released films readily available for free.
I'm in a fairly rural area. Our library system doesn't have much. However, just across the county line is a much more populated county with a lot more ... of everything in their library system. Turns out I can 'join' their library for $25/year. It's somewhat more convenient, because it's about an 8 minute walk from my office, and open more. The local one to my home has cut back hours. I'd like to find a way to 'support' my local library system more, but short of donating tens of thousands to them on my own, there's not much I can do. I've started to use them some more (which may help activity numbers for future budgets) but the $25/year access nets me probably 10x as much stuff.