Will Netflix make DVDs obsolete?

DVDs are already obsolete. Netflix (and other streaming services) helped kill DVDs of many years ago. Remember the video store (Blockbuster)?

Yes; I remember Blockbuster but I watch my dvd’s often and actually continue to buy them. I must be out of touch.

I hope not. We can’t do any kind of online gaming or movie/television watching with our crappy satellite internet. We use DVDs or watch movies on HBO and the other cable networks.

I don’t see it killing DVDs completely, only the rental market (which it already has). I think it will be similar to CDs. The production isn’t as great as it once was, but you can still buy CDs if you want to. I don’t see a reason for them to stop making DVDs all together, but I could understand making fewer of them as demand decreases.

In areas with good, reliable internet connections DVDs are becoming obsolete. On occasion there will be a film that is not available for streaming and I’ll pay a dollar and get it from Redbox, so they are not dodo fodder yet. A couple of my favorite films I own on Blueray and still watch that way. I have already converted my DVD collection over to digital formats. Even that seems silly now with set top boxes and all of the available streaming channels. A few more years and they’ll be like 8-tracks unless this net neutrality business gets in the way. That’ll bring them back for a while.

DVDs are becoming obsolete, partly because of Netflix and partly because of other means of downloading and streaming digital files.

I haven’t used DVDs in many years. I used to buy VHS tapes, and was happy to see DVDs arrive because VHS tapes wear out… except, guess what? DVDs wear out after about the same amount of use. So do digital files like .avi and .mkv (etc.) files. So I’ve accepted that there’s no such thing as permanently owning media, and simply download the files for temporary ownership, and replace as desired. Having spent as much money as I have for things that promised to be permanent but weren’t, I refuse to pay more.

Netflix can suck it.

“DVDs wear out after about the same amount of use (as VHS tapes).”
Really?? I haven’t found that to be the case at all.

My dad gets DVD rentals from Netflix. It’s a large part of Netflix’s business model still, so I’m not sure why they’d want to kill them off.

If Netflix streamed more movies than it does, yes. I still have a 1-DVD-per-month subscription because half the movies I want to watch are not available for streaming on my Roku. I’d love for DVDs to be obsolete. It would save me $7/month and two days waiting for a DVD to arrive.

@dappled_leaves: “Netflix can suck it.”

Huh?

@dappled_leaves *“So I’ve accepted that there’s no such thing as permanently owning media, and simply download the files for temporary ownership, and replace as desired. Having spent as much money as I have for things that promised to be permanent but weren’t, I refuse to pay more.
Netflix can suck it.”*

Huh? Netflix’s business model is pretty much exactly what you described.

And no, DVD/Blu-Ray discs will not become obsolete so long as the internet remains in it’s current state (at least in the US). Broadband access is still spotty to non-existent in many areas of the country, and in places where there is broadband access the ISPs want to cap your service unless you pay ever increasing amounts and want to throttle the availability of sites and services who don’t pay them tolls.

@hominid @Darth_Algar Oh, I must have missed the part where Netflix was free.

@dappled_leaves

Your post didn’t really say anything about something for nothing.

What’s going on? I feel like I missed something here. What’s the beef with Netflix? That it’s not free?

@hominid My post was self-explanatory (and on-topic, once upon a time). If you have a personal beef with me, I don’t think this is the place for it.

My neighbor’s wi-fi signal gets spotty at times and so thank goodness there are still Redboxes and my library rents DVDs.

I have always wondered why there wasn’t something like RedBox but with a huge array of HDD’s inside. Toss in 100 4TB drives so you could have a massive library to choose from. You could remotely update it when you wanted to add/remove content. It could even burn DVD’s or spit out a USB thumb drive so you can watch at home.

My sister uses RedBox a lot and would probably use it a lot more if there was more content.

When I worked for Netflix, two years ago, they said that they were planning on slowly phasing out the DVD services. At this point in time, the only thing that they have phased out is the Sat. delivery for the DVD’s. However there are some rumors going around saying that in the next couple of years, Netflix will no longer offer that service. I personally have not bought, nor rented a DVD in about three years.

Well when Netflix tried to spin off it’s DVD service awhile back the customer backlash was so huge that they dropped the plan almost as soon as they announced it. I doubt they’ll be considering that step again anytime soon.

Story from NPR today that might be interesting to people following this question: How long do CDs last? It depends, but definitely not forever. Presumably, the same constraints limit DVD life as well as they do CD life.