Why Are Two Million People Still Getting Netflix DVDs By Post?

Netflix still has more than two million DVD subscribers – but the pandemic could be a killer blow

- Amit Katwala

Eric Signed Up For Netflix In Around 2005 – drawn in by the convenience. Instead of going to the local branch of Blockbuster to rent a movie, if you waited a couple of days it would arrive in the post. And there was a huge selection of titles – much wider than a small local rental place would be able to stock. By 2007, Netflix delivered its billionth DVD – a copy of Babel, dispatched to a customer in Texas from one of its 42 national distribution centers across America, which served 6.3 million subscribers. But the company’s business model was already starting to change. In January 2007, Netflix announced the launch of its streaming service – which quickly ballooned into a tech giant, with billions of dollars to spend on producing its own original content, and 167 million subscribers across 190 different countries.

But Eric, now aged 41, kept on getting DVDs and Blu-rays by mail – sometimes he watched them and sent them back quickly, at other times they sat unopened for months on end. For most of us, the idea of deciding you want to watch a film, and then waiting for a rental copy to be physically mailed to you seems almost comically quaint. But Eric is far from alone. Of all the huge numbers marking out Netflix’s rapid growth, perhaps this is the most surprising: there are still more than two million people in the US alone getting Netflix DVDs by post.