... There used to be this little startup company and service, where you could queue movie/TV shows, then you would receive the discs in the mail, with a paid envelope to return them as well...

AFAIK - only in the US though, there was much talk at launch of how they got special deals with the US postal service.

Whatever happened to those guys...? (https://dvd.netflix.com/)

Apparently they still do it - I thought it was phased-out for streaming years ago.