Scarecrow Video’s Rent by Mail Service

Published Sep 13, 2023 in #film, #physical-media, #tech, #tv

With Netflix winding down its iconic DVD-by-mail service at the end of this month, this was a pleasant bit of news to read: Scarecrow Video, Seattle’s famous independent video store, is rolling out a rent-by-mail service. I had heard rumblings that they were field-testing this back in the early days of our ongoing pandemic but I’m thrilled now that it’s available to the wider public. As far as I understand it the model is:

Up to six discs out at a time
Rental fees for each disc + $12 flat fee for shipping
14-day rental window

That’s different from the Netflix subscription model with shipping baked into a monthly fee, so my usage may end up skewing more towards things unavailable on my current set of streaming services. Still: Scarecrow’s collection dwarfs Netflix’s current library by about 10:1, so I’m excited to give it a try.

(via Ethan Marcotte)