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posted by martyb on Monday August 27 2018, @04:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-pass-this-up dept.

Earlier this month, MoviePass announced that its customers, previously allowed to see one movie per day, would be limited to just three per month. At the time, the company said that the change wouldn't affect annual subscribers until their plan renewed. But it looks like MoviePass has changed its mind yet again, and probably to nobody's surprise. The company began circulating an email today notifying annual plan subscribers that they too will be limited to just three film showings per month.

"As of today, aligned with Section 2.4 of our Terms of Use, your annual subscription plan will now allow you to see three movies a month instead of the previous unlimited offering, and you'll receive up to a $5 discount on any additional movie tickets purchased," the email said. "This is the current standard plan now in effect for all current and new subscribers." And because the move is retroactive for the current monthly period, which varies by customer, some users will find that they've already seen their three movies once they receive the notification email. The company claims it "intends" to expand its offering of blockbuster and independent films in light of the plan adjustments.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/24/moviepass-annual-subscribers-three-movie-plan/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @05:32PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @05:32PM (#727007)

    The assumption was that if they got enough customers that they'd be able to negotiate the rates for the tickets down enough to be profitable.

    Which is incredibly stupid, even when I buy ticket vouchers from Costco, I'm still only getting at most $3 per ticket off and usually a lot less. The number of movies was always ridiculous as no theater is going to discount things to that extent, no matter how many customers they're bringing in.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @05:41PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 27 2018, @05:41PM (#727014) Journal

    Are there enough screens at a theater to watch 30 movies in a month?

    If so, for certain theaters, do they have enough movies that are actually worth watching at least once?

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 27 2018, @05:46PM

      by Freeman (732) on Monday August 27 2018, @05:46PM (#727019) Journal

      Almost certainly no, on the last part. Probably no on the first part, if I assume correctly that you're thinking about different movies in a month. Though, it's possible some theater out there is showing a rotating list of movies every day, so you wouldn't see the same thing every day. Highly doubtful they would all be new releases.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @08:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @08:42PM (#727121)

      There probably are enough screens, whenever I go to the movies there's plenty of empty seats, perhaps not for movies that were just recently released, but certainly by the end of the run.

      The issue, as far as I'm concerned, is the lack of movies worth paying for. There just aren't enough movies being released that I'd be interested in to justify paying a subscription. AMC theaters has a subscription for $20 a month and one can see up to 3 movies a week, but I struggle to find 2 movies that I'd want to see in a given month, which means that I'd usually be better off just paying for the tickets myself.

      For somebody who finds a few movies they'd like to watch or don't mind paying to watch more than once, it can be a good deal. And probably sustainable.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:24PM (#727056)

    They also wanted a piece of the concession sales form Movie Pass subscribers and are selling subscriber data.

  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 27 2018, @06:52PM (5 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 27 2018, @06:52PM (#727066) Journal

    The assumption was that if they got enough customers

    Unfortunately for MoviePass, x dollars lost per customer times n customers still turns out to be a loss if you change x · n into x · ( n · 106 ). A larger loss, in fact, by a factor of 106, with more people carrying pitchforks and looking for your house.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @08:44PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @08:44PM (#727122)

      And the point you're missing is that they wouldn't have been losing money had they been able to negotiate discounts to cover the money lost on the tickets. The problem is that they haven't been able to negotiate the hoped for savings and as such, they just lose large amounts of money on each customer that actually uses the pass. If you use it for one movie a month, they might break even, but if you watch more than one, then they're losing a ton of money.

      It's an idiotic plan and the people giving them money are morons.

      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 27 2018, @09:44PM (3 children)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 27 2018, @09:44PM (#727142) Journal

        had they been able to negotiate discounts

        If they had been able to so negotiate, x might have been beneficially negative, and MoviePass would not be a laughingstock.

        If. [cracked.com]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @10:09PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @10:09PM (#727155)

          And hindsight is 20/20, the fact that you can't grasp the fact that they weren't planning on losing money on each subscription over the long term has precisely no influence on the decision making that happened in the past.

          • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 27 2018, @11:37PM (1 child)

            by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 27 2018, @11:37PM (#727173) Journal

            It's not that I am having trouble grasping that they totally thought their plan wasn't stupid, and that I need your benevolent assistance in explaining it.

            Nor is hindsight substantially involved.

            Their plan is:

            1. Lose a little money.
            2. Lose more and more money.
            3. Lose gargantuan amounts of money in order to try to appear to be major players in the business via "volume."
            4. Then exploit that position to negotiate better prices that could cause them to start making money. That's got to work!
            5. ...
            6. Theoretical profit!

            It does not require hindsight, nor your frankly brilliant analysis, to see that this plan breaks down at step 2 or 3

            One of the problems with it (not the only one) that you can see right up front is that "Lose lots of money" is a guaranteed for-sure item, while "Force those stingy theaters to re-negotiate prices" is at best a maybe. This is not a brilliant plan that somehow ran off the rails. Failure is where these rails go.

            Consider this: The profit in step 6 would be just as likely to come from answering that Nigerian prince that keeps sending them offers of millions of dollars. That's readily apparent to, I would submit, many people*, just by reading the 1 through 6 above.

            Primary difference being that with the Nigerian prince plan, they go down alone; with the 1-6 plan, above, they lose and lots of gullible customers lose right along with them.

            Sorry for any confusion I caused. Some people don't think in math, and I regret forgetting this.

            -------
            * Of course, many people also send their life savings to His Royal Highness Prince Of Nigeria, so not *all* people can see things so clearly, I admit. But it's there to see.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:12AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:12AM (#727208)

              Except you're a fucking moron that still doesn't get it.

              That wasn't their plan, their plan was to get a large enough number of subscribers that they could fill seats in theater chains and negotiate a discount based upon the fact that they could A) fill those empty seats B) represented a form of advertising that theater chains pay for in other ways and pocket the difference and C) direct those movie goers to movies that they might otherwise skip even though they might be interested in the film based upon analytics.

              Just because you're so fucking stupid that you don't understand what they were planning on doing doesn't change the fact that it was at least plausible when they were doing the planning. Now, you're using the information about how it worked out in order to recast what the plans were to make yourself feel smart.

              Personally, I think it was a somewhat moronic idea in the first place, but it was at least somewhat plausible that it could have worked out. The main issue was that they promised too many viewings for the price with too few limitations and the results were more or less as one would expect.