After 25 years, Netflix is ending its DVD-by-mail service. A look back at other milestones

You likely know that after 25 years in the DVD-rental business Netflix is ending its mail-based service.

There's still some time to watch movies and television series — the last day the red envelopes will be mailed out is Sept. 29. Returns will be accepted through Oct. 27. After the end of September, all content will be through Netflix's streaming service.

Today, we'll take some quick looks at other interesting things about the Netflix DVD service that you might not know.

Most-rented, pre-1970 movies

These are the top 10 most-rented movies produced before 1970 (and year of release):

• Citizen Kane (1941)

• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

• North by Northwest (1959)

• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

• Mary Poppins (1964)

• The Graduate (1967)

• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

• Rear Window (1954)

• Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Most-streamed movie

The most-watched streaming movie on Netflix at the end of last year, according to a Netflix blog, was Red Notice, which was watched for 364,020,000 hours. The movie stars Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds.

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Bad business

From the Bad Business Decision Dept. comes this item: Netflix launched in 1998 with about 800 titles on its borrowing list. The company was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph. Randolph's mother loaned them $25,000 to start the business (which falls under the Good Business Decisions Dept.).

By early 2000, Randolph got a meeting with Blockbuster, and offered the company a way to move away from the VCR rental business and into the DVD-rental world. The price would be $50 million to purchase Netflix.

Blockbuster CEO John Antioco, Randolph told The Guardian a few years ago, was "struggling not to burst into laughter." Randolph added: "You fly to Blockbuster, try and sell the business, and they laugh at you."

As for Blockbuster. . .Netflix had the last laugh.

Good business

Maybe you would have snapped up that deal. And maybe you put $10,000 into Netflix when the company went public May 23, 2002. If so, you would have purchased 666 shares of Netflix at the opening price of $15 a share.

Since then, the stock has split twice -- for 2-for-1 and 7-for-1 -- bring the shares owned to 9,324.

The recent price of $325 a stub puts the value at about $3,000,000.

Bumpy ride

The ride has not been a pretty one, and you could be excused if you decided to bail out years ago. The Motley Fool, an investment website, noted that the stock experienced dramatic sell-offs in the past.

"In September 2011, CEO Reed Hastings angered customers by splitting up Netflix's then-popular DVD-by-mail service from its unlimited streaming package," the website reported in 2021. "The split resulted in an almost 60 percent price hike for customers who wanted to retain both services, angering them and leading to a mass exodus. This event alone caused Netflix's stock to tank by 77 percent."

There were other downturns: "From July through December 2018, Netflix tumbled by 44 percent, while the three-month period from July to September 2019 saw the stock fall by almost 30 percent."

The article that summarized those two plunges was published several months before Netflix took another wallet-wrenching nosedive — a drop of almost 75%.

Starting in October 2021, the stock fell from a record high of $690 down to $175 by June 2022. If you still had those 9,324 shares, the drop in dollar value would have been from around $6,434,000 down to $1,632,000.

Shortly after Netflix turned the corner of that nine-month downward spiral, The Motley Fool noted, "Netflix's stock has been battered and bruised in 2022 as it has had to contend with rises in inflation, consumers cutting back on discretionary spending, and increased streaming competition, which has vastly changed the landscape of the industry. Plus, comparisons against the company's all-time highs of a pandemic-ridden 2021 have only exacerbated its losses in 2022."

Netflix at the Oscars

One last Netflix thing: The company not only streams movies and other content, but it produces content as well.

Netflix was first nominated for an Oscar in 2014 for "The Square," in the category of Best Documentary. Three years later, it won an Oscar for "The White Helments" in the Best Documentary Short category.

Netflix has been nominated for the Academy Award's Best Picture eight times, but never won.

Lonnie Brown can be reached at LedgerDatabase@aol.com.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: The DVD-by-mail service that launched Netflix is ending in September