The end of an era is officially here as Friday, September 29th marks the final day that Netflix will ship out discs in their iconic red envelopes. But fear not, physical media lovers, because Redbox is stepping in. Yes, those kiosks actually work…
To throw a bone — or a Blu-ray — to former Netflix subscribers, Redbox is offering a free rental to some individuals who reply to a tweet with a photo of their last Netflix discs. This is part of their “Show Us Your Red Envelope” campaign, which runs from today to Sunday, October 1st, so be sure to take Redbox up on their deal – hey, $2.25 is $2.25! Notably, Redbox even tried to buy Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service earlier this year.
Not only that, but Redbox will expand its offerings in its kiosks by first taking recommendations for titles that you want to see added to its catalog. As per a statement from Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment’s CEO, “Redbox continues to be a destination for millions of consumers, and we’re thrilled to expand our kiosk offerings to include hard-to-find titles and classic movies that everyone enjoys…We are expanding our content offerings at approximately 29,000 kiosks to include third-party studio titles and new movies such as Barbie and Oppenheimer, which will be available in the coming months. I look forward to hearing from former DVD.com customers on the titles they want to see at our kiosks.”
While Netflix’s DVD rental service will continue to accept returns until the last week of October, they, too, recently initiated their own giveaway. Some lucky subscribers will receive ten free discs to keep forever, adding them to the collection of movies they nabbed from all of the mom-and-pop stores that had to liquidate because of streamers…
According to Redbox – which launched more than 20 years ago – they have rented over two billion discs worldwide. This year’s most popular titles were The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Plane, and Cocaine Bear, showing that the convenience of nearly 30,000 kiosk locations can hit a wide audience.
Do you still rent from Redbox? How long were you a subscriber to Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service?