this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Almost every film ever made, available via next-day delivery, with no late fees: that formula didn’t just drive Blockbuster into bankruptcy but, for a moment in time, completely redefined how movies were watched.
In order to send out more than 5 billion discs to millions of subscribers over the years, the company deployed cutting-edge automation, embraced machine learning before it was cool, and laid the technical and financial foundation for what would ultimately become the massive, worldwide streaming business Netflix is known for today.
“We didn’t have DVDs sitting on shelves — even overnight,” wrote founding CEO Marc Randolph in his book That Will Never Work chronicling Netflix’s early days.
That Netflix kept the lights in its DVD hubs on as long as it did is largely due to the innovations that people like Johnson and Venkatesh worked on, which helped to automate shipping and keep the service profitable.
The decline of the DVD business made some of this maintenance a bit easier: faced with fewer subscribers, the company combined shipping facilities and closed redundant hubs, leaving it with a bunch of unused machines that could be used for spare parts.
Netflix spokesperson Adrian Zamora declined to comment on how many hubs remained operational in 2023, but Redditors estimated earlier this year that the number may have been in the single digits.
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