The 25th Anniversary of Netflix Sending Out Its First DVD

Today is my birthday. It was also on March 10 1998 that Netflix sent out its first DVD. For those of you who think of Netflix as a streaming service, it originated as a company that rented DVDs through the mail. It was a good time for such a company. DVD player ownership was growing in the late Nineties and would continue to do so in the Naughts.

Netflix was founded on August 29 1997 by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings. As mentioned above, it sent out its first DVD on March 10 1998. As to what that DVD was, it was Beetlejuice (1998). The person who rented that first historic DVD is unknown. It was in 1999 that Netflix introduced monthly subscriptions, whereby one could rent several DVDs for a low monthly fee. Netflix grew very quickly in the Naughts. By February 2007 it had sent out its billionth DVD (the movie Babel from 2006).

It was also in 2007 that Netflix launched its streaming service. In fact, it was announced on January 15. Originally, if one was subscribed to the DVD service, then one was also subscribed to the streaming service. This changed in the mid-Teens, when the two services were finally separated, although both retained the Netflix name. Netflix still sends DVDs through the mail, through their site DVD.com.

While I no longer subscribe to Netflix's DVD service, I was a subscriber for well over a decade. Through its DVD service I was able to watch the entire run of the obscure TVseries Nowhere Man and re-watch the TV series Crime Story. I am not sure how many movies I discovered through Netflix, but it was quite a few. There are those who keep announcing the death of physical media, although I personally think such pronouncements are greatly exaggerated. Aside from myself, I know many who still use physical media. In fact, if I made more money I would probably still subscribe to Netflix DVD. The plain fact is that any streaming service is somewhat limited in what it has to offer, but Netflix DVD still has thousands of DVDs available. What is more, while most streaming services will offer only mainstream movies, one can get very obscure movies through Netflix DVD. It is then my hope that Netflix will still continue sending out DVDs for another 25 years and more.