
AMC Is Beating MoviePass at Its Own Game - smaili
https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/09/15/3-reasons-amc-is-beating-moviepass-at-its-own-game.aspx
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clay_the_ripper
Moviepass tried to do the same thing ClassPass did. ClassPass launched with a
too good to be true business model, grabbed huge market share and is now
successfully pivoting to a more sustainable model. The difference is that
ClassPass has leverage with the studios, because there are thousands of small,
one location gyms out there. Movie pass doesn’t have the same leverage because
they are providing access to much larger chains with lots of locations.

Yet another example of reason from first principles :)

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cjhopman
... wait, what? ClassPass is making money?

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clay_the_ripper
Note I said “more sustainable” :)

They’ve been pivoting around in search of something that can make them
profitable eventually.

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jtcond13
I tip my cap to all the loyal users of MoviePass out there; I have long waited
for the day when investors would be willing to subsidize my hobbies and you've
been living in that world for months. Bravo, ladies and gentleman.

I have to wonder, though, why you'd want to go to the movies regularly these
days, with all the dreck that Hollywood has been putting out in recent years.
Maybe it's time for you guys to hit the $1.99 rentals on YouTube/Amazon/iTunes
more often.

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noitsnot
The movie theatre experience is one of a kind. You can't come close to re-
creating it with your phone or tv.

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colordrops
You can with a VR headset though.

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cwyers
Most movie theaters don't give me headaches and make me feel like I'm getting
carsick.

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Lewton
Carsick?? Why would 1 to 1 movement make you carsick?

Are you talking about gearvr? Or other “not really vr” headsets?

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Reedx
I was surprised to learn that MoviePass has been around for 7 years!

They started in 2011 and only had 20k subscribers in 2016. It wasn't until
late 2017 that they sold majority stake to Helios and dropped the price to
$10.

That's quite a Hail Mary pass. What lead to that after ~6 years? Were they out
of money? Out of patience?

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AndrewKemendo
_The disrupted is disrupting the disruptor in the [var] market._

Arguably this is going to be the case going forward.

Increasingly, incumbents can move as fast as "disruptors" because information
flows so quickly and nearly every major incumbent has learned that "disrupting
yourself" is key to long term survival.

Incumbents can see threat trends as they are gaining traction, rapidly invest
in an in-channel copycat (because they have so much cash on hand) and since
they already have the user base, deploy the solution more easily.

I'm increasingly convinced that the orthogonal flanks that startups have been
able to do to incumbents in high tech over the last 20 years, is not viable
anymore.

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LaikaF
I actually ended up doing my first credit card chargeback on movie pass after
the changes they announced at the beginning of August. I had canceled and
there was one more month but then they announced the movie selection thing.

Suddenly when I went to look on a saturday no theater within 10 miles of me
had a show time for anything they had selected.

Part of the reason I got it over Sinema is because moviepass worked at my
local indie film theater. The moviepass selection would probably never include
things I wanted to see.

Side note if that theater offered an unlimited pass I'd jump on it in a heart
beat. Their screenings are never full and they tend to bring back older things
I'd want to see. When the Ghost in the Shell live action came out they showed
the original anime version for example.

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empath75
This was inevitable. Moviepass was the dumbest startup idea I’ve ever seen.

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tnypxl
The idea is fine. The execution was garbage. They created a race to the bottom
that no one felt compelled to join.

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wvenable
It was the clearest example of a start-up designed to build marketshare
without any idea how to profit from that marketshare.

Anybody can create a business trading $5 for $6 dollars and get millions of
subscribers but that doesn't make that business idea good.

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dawnerd
They had a plan but it backfired when the theaters refused to give them a cut
of concessions. Also backfired when their funded movie flopped.

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wvenable
They thought they could use their millions of customers as leverage against
the theaters but that was a ridiculous plan.

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jrnichols
i'm happy for moviepass, even though I never signed up. I like that it's
brought some change to the movie theatre market, and as a result i can now use
the Cinemark subscription plan that sprung up recently. It's a total win for
me. :)

