All three of Netflix’s remaining DVD.com subscribers will be happy to hear about the perks coming their way now that the DVD rental service is shutting down once and for all. Okay, there are more than three Netflix DVD.com subscribers, and I have mad respect for anyone who stuck around and continued renting DVDs through the mail in 2023.
Per Statista, Netflix had 2.15 million DVD subscribers as of the fourth quarter of 2019. That figure might have dropped to 1.1 million by the March 2023 quarter.
But no matter how many Netflix discs you might have rented over the past few years, it’s still not good enough to keep the lights on at the streamer’s DVD rental business. The Netflix DVD rental service is shutting down on September 29th. But there’s one last surprise for the die-hards who stuck around: After that date, you’ll be able to keep all the discs you have without getting charged.
Netflix announced the closure of DVD.com earlier this year. Then the company revealed that all subscribers who register to get up to 10 extra discs shipped to their door on the final day of service will be able to keep them for free. Netflix will look at your queue and create a random list of titles that will hit your mailbox on the final day of business.
But that might not be good enough for some loyal Netflix DVD subscribers. Not all of them will get the 10 extra DVDs. Nor should they settle for getting random movies or TV shows, even though they’re based on their watching history.
The better option is to order some of your favorite titles before September 29th. That will guarantee that you get to keep DVDs that you might actually enjoy. As you can see in the tweet above, you won’t have to return any Netflix discs after September 29th, and Netflix will not charge you for them.
It’s also important to point out that Netflix will keep receiving returns until October 27th. That’s also a date to remember in case you do end up wanting to return discs after the service closes.
Netflix has a FAQ section that explains what happens with your account and data after the service is shuttered, and how it’ll handle your payments. Long story short, you won’t have to do anything. Netflix will handle it all.
While you decide which Netflix DVDs to order so you can keep them, you should also consider subscribing to one of Netflix’s streaming tiers. It will certainly beat waiting for DVDs to hit your mailbox… as long as you don’t mind repeated price hikes.
On that note, if you subscribe to both streaming and the DVD option, Netflix will only cancel your DVD subscription. Also, why would one pay for both services? These must be the folks who saw Blockbuster die and decided never to let that happen again under their watch.