Netflix allowed a huge library of DVDs to be rented. You could have 3-4 DVDs on rotation for a rather cheap price.
This happened when Blockbuster would charge you $5 per movie, and Netflix would charge $10.99 for unlimited DVDs, but you could only have 3 DVDs checked out.
That's why Netflix was huge and killed Video Store rentals.
Netflix has never dropped their DVD service even though they wanted to many times. There are still places in the US where broadband is unavailable.
Also, due to first sale they don't have same license restrictions as they would on streaming. Once they buy the disc they can rent it as many times they want for as long as they want.
I've considered re-adding the DVD rental, I've been using Netflix since they included the coupons in DVD player purchases, because they have the films that aren't available on Netflix streaming and it would be cheaper than adding the myriad streaming service subscriptions.
But also, I get your stance. I prefer legal routes over gray/black markets.
And then I’d have to remember to cancel HBO Max.
Maybe that's the perfect use case for subscription-based VPNs, renting DVDs from an American IP address... Hope it fits through the IP tunnel.
$ curl -I https://dvd.netflix.com/
...
HTTP/1.1 200 OKDownside, there is starting to become a decent number of shows/movies that are exclusive streaming. Second downside is it can be decently slow to get anything. I average about 4 discs per month on a 1 disc out at a time level. It used to be 6-8 per month. But they slowed it down.
I stopped messing with streaming because of the churn of is it on this one or that one. I just gave up and bought whatever boxset I needed. Then found I was not watching the streaming services at all.
People were excited about streaming services because we all got sick of dropping $20+ to buy a shitty movie or album, and there were always availability issues at video rental stores.
Ownership over movies and TV shows isn’t particularly important. I don’t have data to support this, but it seems true that people watch the (probably overwhelming) majority of movies only one time. Why own what I don’t want or need? And if I really enjoy the flick, I can still buy a disc.
Music seems more important to own since owning is the only way to guarantee availability.
Myself and most people I know stopped renting videos when we could stream stuff easily.
My age group, mid 20s during Netflix creation, everyone I knew have a Netflix DVD subscription. We were raised with VHS rentals, so DVD rentals were the natural next step when DVD players got cheap.