Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc. did not try to obscure the reasons why on Tuesday. MoviePass has become a burden.
MoviePass drew in millions of subscribers, luring them with a $10 monthly rate. But that proved costly. Because MoviePass typically pays theaters the full cost of tickets—$15 or more in big cities—a single movie can put the service in the red. At one point Helios and Matheson had to take out a $5 million emergency loan to pay its payment processors after missed payments resulted in service outages.
Then, last week, the company acknowledged that it is being investigated by the New York Attorney General on allegations that it misled investors.
Moviepass's mistake was choosing the color red for their cards, instead of black.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:51AM (4 children)
Probably it could work if they manage to get enough suckers.
As absurdum: if the whole US population were to be subscribers, then it's pretty clear their business would work.
A possible explanation for why they acted this way: a statistician tricked them to think they could reach a critical mass of suckers. It has to be a statistician, probably a brain dead one, these are the kind of professionals that don't concern themselves too much with causation as long as they can detect correlations. (grin)
Alternatively, the guys that pitched the idea in the first place to investors knew very well it's not going to last. But why would this matter, the guys needed money and the investors have them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:59AM (1 child)
I thought the idea was:
something web something
get as many customers as possible no matter matter what
"hey finance, we have a gorillion customers wanna invest"
finance has something new and flashy to use in their bonds
"sorry old lady, brand X did not go as we thought, a pity we invested all on it"
rinse and repeat
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:18PM
Hey, it worked for Twitter (so far). “We’re losing money on every unit, but we’ll make it up in volume.” Only difference is unit price - tweets are cheap.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:07PM (1 child)
Applies to every business, ever.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:24PM
Some businesses don't necessarily rely on pure suckers to survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford