The Lovefilm By Post DVD rental service will cease to operate on 31 October this year, its owner Amazon has said.
Amazon cited a “decreasing demand” for the discs and a growing number of customers who were streaming movies and TV series instead.
The move has irritated some fans, who argue that a wider range of films is available to rent on DVD and Blu-ray.Lovefilm was founded in 2002 and acquired by Amazon in 2011, when it had more than 1.4 million subscribers.
For a monthly subscription fee, Lovefilm customers could receive a DVD or Blu-ray disc of their choice via post that they would send back once watched. From 2010, some content could also be accessed via online streaming instead.
A spokesman for Amazon told the BBC it planned to donate Lovefilm’s thousands of discs “to charity partners”.
The spokesman did not say how many individual discs this amounted to, but he noted that Lovefilm’s catalogue covers more than 80,000 titles.
“We have very much enjoyed delivering the Lovefilm By Post service to our customers,” said Amazon in a statement.
“However, over the last few years we’ve seen a decreasing demand for DVD and Blu-ray rental as customers increasingly move to streaming.
“We are committed to finding alternative roles for all Lovefilm employees within Amazon.” Some fans of Lovefilm were left disgruntled by the decision.
“It’s not great, to be honest,” customer Michael Harrison told the BBC.
He argued that there was a wider selection of films available to rent in physical form than with streaming services.
“You don’t have to buffer it, or worry about pixelation,” he added.
“I live in a small town and we don’t have many shops around – it was great for me to get films posted to me.”
Another customer wrote on Twitter: “Very sad at the demise of Lovefilm.
“We’re old school in my house and still enjoy renting our DVDs.”
Amazon has published a help page on its website for customers of Lovefilm, notifying them of the service’s closure.
