Netflix is finally shutting down what has been a central concept of the 25-year-old company: mailing DVDs rented online. These days, of course, Netflix is a streaming giant, and as we've seen in gaming over the past 25 years, physical media is disappearing; September 29 will be the last day of service for those still eagerly awaiting the red envelope in their mailboxes.

"We are so happy and honored to have brought Movie Night to our wonderful members for 25 years," Netflix tweeted (opens in new tab)." Thanks for joining us on this amazing journey." (That's probably a bit of an overstatement, considering we're talking about putting a disc in an envelope.)

If you want to rock it like the coolest dad on the block in 1999, you have a few more months to experience the novelty of mailing DVDs Netflix still has a variety of new movies on DVD. There's even "Cocaine Bear," which you can check out (literally) at dvd.netflix.com (opens in a new tab).

DVD rentals are where Netflix got its start, but that was a long time ago technically; Netflix launched its streaming service in 2007. Earlier this year, it was reported that DVD rental service revenues would decline by $100 million in 2022, with net revenues of only $100 million (open in new tab). A thriving business for us mere mortals, but apparently not one that Netflix can afford.

This is the impression expressed by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos in a blog post.

"After 25 years of great history, we have decided to close DVD.com by the end of this year. Our goal has always been to provide the best possible service to our members, but as business continues to shrink that will become increasingly difficult. So we want to take the high ground," he said.

Sarandos' post concludes with some cute statistics; Netflix has shipped over 5.2 billion DVDs, and the first DVD ever was "Beetlejuice" on March 10, 1998. The most popular rental was the American football drama "The Blind Side," starring Sandra Bullock, which was released in 2009, almost 11 years after the service launched.

You can read Sarandos' post on the Netflix blog.