Netflix Distributes Final DVD

After 25 years of operation, Netflix, the dominant streaming platform, has officially sent out its final DVD, marking the end of a service that played a significant role in the company’s transformation into an entertainment giant.

Founder Reed Hastings has often said that he started the company out of frustration with a Blockbuster rental store that charged him $40 to return the movie Apollo 13 six weeks late.

That eventually gave rise to the idea of a subscription-based DVD streaming service, which allowed the customer to keep the title as long as they wanted.

Once the DVD was watched, it was slipped into a pre-paid envelope and sent back to the company, and the subscriber’s next choice was sent in return.

“In 1998 we shipped our first DVD. This morning we shipped the last one,” the company said on its website Friday.

“For 25 years, we redefined how people watched movies and series at home, sharing the excitement when they opened their mailboxes to our iconic red envelopes,” the statement said.

In April, when the decision to end DVD rentals was announced, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said those “iconic” emails “changed the way people watched shows and movies at home — and paved the way for the transition to streaming.”

On its website, the company said the postal service amassed 40 million unique subscribers over its lifetime, mostly in the United States. The streaming platform currently has 238 million subscribers worldwide.

Netflix said that the first Mailed movie was the comedy Beetlejuice, and that more than 5.2 billion DVDs have been shipped since then.

The most rented DVD was the American sports drama “The Blind Side” starring Sandra Bullock.

This feel-good film about a white family that takes in a black homeless child was released in 2009, when the DVD service was at the height of its popularity.

The film has since proven controversial after former NFL star and film subject Michael Oher said the portrayal was exaggerated and full of inaccuracies.