The Red Envelopes of Netflix Ride Off into the Sunset

I was all ready with another post for today when this popped into my inbox yesterday afternoon:

You can learn more about the decision in these articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Gizmodo, and Reuters among others.

Even though this decision makes perfect sense –I guess there have to be less than 2 million of us red envelope cinemaniacs left– it’s quite the bummer.

For almost all of those 25 years, I have been the recipient of a non-trivial number of those red envelopes. Netflix completely changed how I watched films and TV shows. I still recall how I would binge-watch whole series a disc at a time: a civilized pace from another age.

I have kept the the DVDs as part of my Netflix subscription because even in the age of multiple streamers, there are some films that aren’t available online.

So I’m sad, but I’m glad they’re giving this far of a heads up. Guess I’ll have to see how far I can whittle down my DVD queue between now and September.

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Dear Bjorn,

For 25 years, it’s been our extraordinary privilege to mail movie nights to our members all across America. On September 29th, 2023, we will ship our final iconic red envelope.

While times have changed since our first shipment in March 1998, our goal has remained the same: to provide you with access to the broadest collection of movies and shows possible, delivered directly to your door, with no due dates or late fees.

As the DVD business continues to shrink, it’s going to become increasingly difficult to achieve that goal. In our final season, we’ll continue providing you the best service possible, all the way to the very last shipment.

You may have some questions, and we’ve tried to answer them in our Final Season FAQ – and if you want to share something with us, you can send feedback here.

We sincerely thank you for joining us on this amazing journey. We could never have shipped more than 5 billion discs without movie lovers like you. It’s been a genuine privilege to share movie nights with you.

Pop the popcorn, fire up your player, and enjoy this final season of red envelopes.

Sincerely, The Netflix DVD team