story

Because money.

Why buy my own copy for $20 when I can watch it now for pennies along with all the other stuff for $12/month?

Because money.

JeffTheAlpaca

If there is a positive almost all of the Netflix disc rentals all have the bonus features intact and not like the old days when they removed all the bonus features on the rental discs.

JeffTheAlpaca

Netflix is really bad now.

I think 1917 came out in March and that along with Doolittle, Bad Boys 4, Fantasy Island, The Gentleman, The Hunt, Underwater, and the Last Full Measure are at the top of my que for months and they send movies I added in 2015 from my que.

lwhy?

Anyone still getting discs in the mail? I used to get discs in two days, but now it's taking three days. They're still coming from the same distribution center in Georgia too...

tommyp007

I do. 1 disc at a time. There’s still a lot of movies I want to see, mostly classics, that just aren’t available to stream there. And I rarely pay to rent a streaming movie, unless the disc is OOP.

TomOpus

There's been issues with USPS in the news lately. Might be the reason

lwhy?

I decided to cut down from 2 discs to 1 now. There's a lot of movies only available on streaming that I want to check out and I can always switch back to 2 discs later on. I also have found that the selection is getting worse. I tried to rent The Lady from Shanghai and they don't have it. I ended up buying the Blu-ray on Amazon for $7.50.

Why So Blu?

Nope.
I had upgraded to the 4K plan a few months ago and its been awesome.

JeffTheAlpaca

Now 90% of the movies on disc are on DVD only and no Blu-ray.

lwhy?

Anyone still getting discs in the mail? I've noticed that my last disc shipped from California. They used to ship from Georgia. I didn't know if Netflix only has one distribution center now, because discs are now taking four days to arrive from California to Tennessee.

TomOpus

I never ever got discs from them. Maybe a mod needs to change the thread title?

lwhy?

This thread has always been about the disc service. Maybe a mod can add disc to the title?

John Galt

I stopped a few years back when it was clear Netflix has quit even trying to maintain the service. Closing distribution centers, not replacing inventory when discs get damaged, completely skipping new release catalog titles, and many times going DVD only for new movies was enough for me. I've been using 3d-blurayrental and they're filling the niche very well.

TomOpus

This thread title should've been changed years ago. Especially since the other thread was created and streaming started in 2007.

Josh-da-man

I'm surprised they even bother with disc rental by mail at this point. Seems like it would be a money loser for them.

John Galt

They still did $182MM in DVD rentals in 2020 compared to $30B streaming revenue, but they're dropping about 25% per year.

TomOpus

I imagine they're keeping it around hoping a happy legacy customer might eventually convert to streaming. While $182MM is small compared to $30B, seems like the DVD side would be a pain to deal with, as a company.

John Galt

Yeah, I didn't see anything in their 10K mentioning profitability for that unit, but I can't imagine the margin is even worth the hassle. Part of me also wonders how many people are still unknowingly subscribing....either they have streaming and DVD and don't notice the dual charges, or just never canceled DVD and don't review their CCs.

g

I'm actually happy with the DVD/ Blu ray service. I pay 6$ a month and I get two rentals a month that I can keep as long as I want at one at a time. I get new releases in Blu ray that I don't have to buy. I just saw Ghostbusters Afterlife. Pretty much all the new releases have been in blu ray. Great price so I can rent a few new releases easily without buying them right away.

Josh-da-man

I guess that's one good reason for them to keep it going.

$182M in revenue sounds good on paoper, but once you factor in the cost of discs, two-way postage, and general overhead, it sounds like it could easily be a loss if people are using it regularly.

I've always been sort of surprised that Netflix was able to make it work when they were disc-only. They were getting a fixed monthly fee from their customers, but when you factor in all of the DVDs they had to buy, the two-way shipping, the handling costs, the overhead, and the warehouse costs, it seems like could add up quickly and the heavy users who turned discs over quickly could be a huge drag on the bottom line.

Then again, I always wondered how Blockbuster turned a profit with those huge, mostly empty stores, and renting out VHS tapes at $3-4 a pop. And they never seemed that busy, either. Maybe if they were smaller, like about 20% the size they were, I could see it, but they had to be paying out the ass for floorspace that was mostly unused.

But they still managed to kill off the mom-and-pop shops who less floorspace and better depth of stock.

Maybe Blockbuster was laundering money like those mattress stores that took over their old buildings.

lwhy?

I think they make money on the people that rent a movie and keep it for months without returning it. I still enjoy the disc service. They have movies that you aren't available on streaming and it's cheaper to rent discs via Netflix than pay $5.99 for a digital rental at Vudu/Amazon/iTunes.

John Galt

From their 2007 10K:



Looks like they were right at 35% gross margin throughout this whole period. Subscription expenses include the purchases of new discs, revenue sharing with the studios (both per rental fee and stock options), and postage and packaging. Fulfillment expenses include the cost of operating the distribution centers.

Also found this paragraph from 2007