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Comment by cercatrova | Hacker News Reader

Netflix still offers their DVD service.

Does anyone use it? I am thinking that people are so accustomed to immediate online gratification that waiting a day or three for a DVD in the mail is just not something a lot of people will do anymore. That means you are going to have to think ahead about what you want to watch, and plan a time to do it, rather than just flopping down on the couch and surfing to find whatever catches your eye.

And many people don't even have DVD players anymore. I don't.

I don't personally as I don't even have a disc drive in my house but when looking online, people in rural areas use it apparently.

Makes sense considering the state of rural internet in many places.

> Does anyone use it?

I think film students and the like. It's become a niche product, not a mass-market one.

Back in the day, people had these things called "lives" with irl friends and loved ones. Back then, watching a movie was a special thing you did that brought people together, they didn't need to binge 10 hours of content every night. A few movies a week was plenty.

But you can do the same thing with your friends with streaming services? How would that relate to whether or not DVDs are niche?

Part of why it's niche is they basically abandoned that line of business. Remember that they even tried to spin it off into its own separate company, and only changed their minds after a huge backlash.

Many companies fail to adapt and stick with old business models. Netflix did the exact opposite and took their dvd business behind the barn and shot it in the head.

I do. There are a bunch of movies I have on my list that fall into the one day I want to watch this category. I do have the cheapest plan because they closed the Chicago-area distribution center and it was hard to get enough DVDs per month with shipping times for anything more generous to be cost-effective.

RedBox provides all the new DVDs nearly instantly, and for anything older it's often pretty cheap to buy them used on Amazon.

>And many people don't even have DVD players anymore. I don't.

The only reason I do is because gaming consoles double as DVD players now. I assume that's a leading force in why others might have DVD players, too.

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