MONTREAL — The Luddites were a 19th-century group of British textile workers who destroyed the mechanized looms and knitting frames they saw as a threat to their livelihoods.
They were followers of Ned Ludd, an elusive apprentice weaver who had supposedly smashed a stocking frame. Although there’s no evidence that Ludd actually existed, the name stuck around, and the word Luddite has since entered the lexicon to describe anyone who resists new technology.
In recent years, peculiar signs have started popping up around Montreal, attached to street lights and signposts. They’re unprepossessing, but intriguing, with just a few words scrawled in permanent marker. “Visit eBay,” they say in French, “Le Pro des DVD.”
Unlike Ludd, Montreal’s DVD pro is decidedly real. Jean-François Hall, a self-described “dinosaur” who doesn’t subscribe to streaming platforms, says he has sold more than 50,000 DVDs in the past three years.
Hall is catering to a niche population of collectors and cinephiles who are holding fast to a technology that for years has been on the edge of extinction. Even as DVD sales have plummeted, there appears to be a growing online community of people who prefer to watch their movies off-line.
“I don’t think (DVDs) are going to disappear. I think, on the contrary, they’re going to be like vinyl records, they’re going to come back a little stronger,” Hall said in a recent interview. “Because people are going to fall into a nostalgic mode where they’re going to realize that the films they knew aren’t available anywhere.”
And so he has fashioned himself into something of a DVD guru, using his distinctive low-tech marketing strategy to attract fellow dinosaurs to a business he conducts exclusively online. It’s unclear whether the Luddites would approve.
Hall, 42, runs his operation out of a claustrophobia-inducing basement apartment in Montreal. Crates of DVDs – about 7,000 or so – fill the front room and line the hallway that leads to his living quarters.
There are many familiar titles, somewhat haphazardly categorized. A crate of TV series – "Game of Thrones," "Friends," "Lost" – sits beside the Christmas collection, which includes several copies of "Home Alone" and "Miracle on 34th Street."
Many of Hall’s DVDs sell for just a few dollars each, but rare titles go for much more. During the interview, he pulled out an unopened copy of the 2011 Quebec film "La Run," about a drug-smuggling operation, that he said is worth around $80.
For Hall, this all began by chance. Three years ago, one of his neighbours got evicted and dumped his collection of thousands of DVDs at the curb. Seeing an opportunity, Hall filled up a couple of garbage bags and proceeded to sell about 1,500 of the films on Facebook Marketplace.
He took up the business in earnest after undergoing surgery a few months later, when he was on a break from his day job as a technician on film productions in Quebec. He now buys his DVDs in bulk from pawn shops and thrift stores, and from the legions of people who contact him wanting to rid themselves of their own collections.
From Marketplace, he moved to eBay, where he now gets orders from across the country. He’s hoping to break into the U.S. market sometime soon.
“It’s very, very profitable,” he said, though he declined to get into the numbers. “I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t worth it.”
Hall said some of his customers are collectors who want to leave a cinematic legacy to their children. Others are looking for specific titles – maybe childhood favourites – that they can’t find on streaming platforms.
“Before, there were video rental stores. But that doesn’t exist anymore, so they have no choice but to buy them,” he said.
Hall still pays for cable TV and has a personal collection of 200 or 300 DVDs, with some VHS tapes thrown in for good measure. During the interview, he wore a shirt that said, “DVDs must not disappear.”
“I like having them,” he explained. “I like having 50 movies in front of me and being able to choose.”
DVD sales have been in free fall for years. The Digital Entertainment Group, a U.S. industry association, reported US$451 million in U.S. physical media sales in the first half of 2024, compared to US$580 million last year. In 2023, Netflix ended its DVD service and Best Buy announced it was discontinuing DVD and Blu-ray sales.
Still, there’s a thriving online community of DVD collectors and movie-lovers who provide a steady clientele for Hall and others like him. On the social media site Reddit, one community of DVD collectors now numbers more than 400,000, up from fewer than 50,000 in early 2020.
“I think there are a lot of people who have a nostalgic connection to a viewing experience that was tied to a type of medium,” said Éric Falardeau, a lecturer in cinema at Université Laval.
There are plenty of examples of older technologies experiencing a revival. Vinyl record sales are on the rise. Retro gaming is in full swing. Even cassette tapes are having a moment.
But DVDs? Katharina Niemeyer, a professor at the media school at the Université du Québec à Montréal, isn’t so sure. Part of the appeal of vinyl records, she said, is the tactile experience of flipping them over and placing the needle. DVDs might not be analog enough to compete. “I don’t think that there will be a big comeback,” she said.
Hall’s is a shoestring operation, but that might be part of its charm. His ads, printed in blue and black ink on the backs of old election campaign signs, were designed as a cheap way to get some attention. But his handwritten tributes to a dying technology have earned him a small measure of fame in Montreal.
He knows he’s serving a niche market, but that doesn’t bother him. “That the majority of people don’t want them, that doesn’t matter to me," he said. "There will always be people who want to buy them."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 19, 2024.
Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press