One thing's for sure --
Netflix isn't afraid of
trimming back anything it feels is hindering its ability to excel on its core offerings. On a posting over at the official Netflix Blog, Meghan has announced that the outfit's previously viewed DVD section will be vanishing on November 30th. In case that's not crystal clear, after that day, members will no longer be able to purchase secondhand DVDs from the company. According to her, Netflix has decided to refocus its efforts exclusively on providing DVD rentals via mail and
online rentals via broadband. We're also hearing that the firm's current stash of DVDs will be offloaded to a wholesaler for resell, but unless you feel like ponying up for yet another middleman, you may want to snap up a few now while there's still time. Or, you could just complain really loudly and see if it has another miraculous
change of heart.
[Image courtesy of
FutureGringo, via
Silicon Alley Insider]
posted Nov 4th 2008 at 4:12PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
scyber @ Nov 4th 2008 8:32PM
Netflix used to sell previously viewed DVDs via Half.com back in the day. I bought a bunch b/c they were ridiculously cheap. IIRC, most were less than $5.
TB @ Nov 4th 2008 8:41PM
I bought a DVD from Netflix once, everything went smoothly, no complaints. I probably would've bought from them more often if they didn't charge shipping, but still it was cheap enough. Personally, I was hoping they'd start selling HD-DVDs/Blu-rays, but looks like that's never going to happen now.
burndive @ Nov 5th 2008 11:39AM
I don't think anyone cares enough to complain. They weren't that good of a deal and, hey, we can always just put movies we want to watch on our queue (or stream them), so it was probably not in Netflix's interest to be marketing movies for sale to a rental audience.
They'll show up somewhere on the market, so the supply of used discs isn't diminishing, just going through a different set of hands.