Netflix offers surprise gift for its most faithful subscribers

Netflix is to honour the loyalty of some of its most loyal fans with a gift, one that also marks the ends of an era for the streamer

Netflix’s DVD rental service is to ship out its final discs in September, and the few stalwarts still signed up to the plan will receive “up to 10 extra discs.”

These won’t have to be returned, as this is effectively a way for Netflix to offload some of the thousands (and thousands) of discs it no longer has any use for.

The service, DVD.COM, reportedly stocked upwards of 100,000 titles at its peak. While we haven’t been able to dig out how many are in the library these days, it hasn’t simply stagnated since Netflix announced rentals were to wind down back in April.

You’ll find recent releases like Fast X and Avatar: The Way of Water in there.

If you’re among the hardcore crowd of DVD subscribers, of which there were reportedly 1.5 million as of November 2022 according to the AP, Netflix advises you to refresh your most-wanted list to make best use of this last hurrah for DVD rentals.

Netflix’s DVD.com will send out its final discs on September 29.

Not in the US? You’re out of luck. The service only operates in in the US, and has done since 1998. That’s right, the origins of the company that has gone on to define the streaming era is 25 years old.

New subscribers will be accepted up until August 28.

“After an incredible 25 year run, we've made the difficult decision to wind down at the end of September,” reads Netflix's DVD.com site. "Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that's going to become increasingly difficult.”

It calls 2023 the “final season” of DVD.com, aiming to “go out on a high note.”

Here’s the list of the most-rented DVDs, according to Netflix. Take this with a grain of salt, though, as a previous stats dump suggested The Blind Side was Netflix's most popular title:

• True Grit
• Gone Girl
• Inglorious Basterds
• Red
• The Butler
• The Big Short
• The King’s Speech
• Fury
• Water for Elephants
• Bridge of Spies

Netflix’s DVD.com service has shipped more than 5.2 billion DVDs over its decades of service.