
MoviePass no longer lets you see the same movie more than once - thg
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/27/moviepass-no-movies-more-than-once/
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120bits
One of my co worker got an email, saying that they're beta testing a feature,
where they need to upload the receipts or else their account will be
cancelled. This is such a bad business model. Can anyone else confirm this.

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macandcheese
I mean the whole thing is such a bad business model.

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slg
This should be make for a good case study for business schools some day.
MoviePass was billed as using the gym membership model because it relied on
paying customers who don't use the service. However they totally ignored what
makes the gym membership model work.

It isn't that people are just too lazy to cancel a product they don't use.
People feel an obligation to have a gym membership and many of those people
don't use it because they simply don't enjoy working out. Canceling a gym
membership is admitting failure in achieving a goal to work out. There is
therefore a huge emotional investment in maintaining a gym membership. That
pressure doesn't exist for MoviePass. Almost no one feels pressure to go to
the movies so you don't get people signing up for the service out of
obligation. And everyone who signs up enjoys going to the theater at some
level so low usage members are hard to come by.

Meanwhile the marginal cost of an extra customer in the gym membership model
decreases at scale. Adding a single heavy user that works out 10+ hours a week
isn't really going to alter a gym's bottom line. This isn't the case for
MoviePass. Each ticket costs the company the same amount. If you get one heavy
user that buys a ticket everyday, MoviePass might need as many as 25 paying
customers who barely use the service. It just doesn't scale.

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panarky
_> MoviePass was billed as using the gym membership model_

This was never their business model. MP doesn't win if customers pay $9.95 but
sometimes forget to go to the movies.

MP wins when they get revshare deals with theaters.

Naturally theaters don't want to share, so MP is buying negotiating leverage
with free movie tickets.

MP is trying to get 20 million movie patrons hooked on an all-you-can-eat
model so MP becomes the source of a large percentage of traffic. Then MP can
threaten to shut off the tap if they don't get a cut.

Theater chains are betting that MP burns through their cash before they get
big enough to make that threat.

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mevile
This sounds dysfunctional. Business partners hoping to be the one that
benefits at the expense of their partner.

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guiambros
Is it too different from Spotify? Very similar situation.

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iamben
Similar to the whole iTunes / CDs thing, for sure.

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cwyers
Shockingly, their terrible business model allowed them to grow quickly as long
as they could lose prodigious amounts of money. They're facing competition now
from the theater chains (Cinemark, who runs my nearest theater, has a
discounted movie pass club that's not nearly as good a deal but is actually a
viable business) and it looks like they can no longer afford to lose as much
money. They're doomed.

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Jtsummers
> They're doomed.

Honestly, this was my assumption when I signed up for the service. People like
me will keep them in business longer than they ought to be (because new people
signing up delays their financial failure). But I'm almost at break even after
just 1.5 months. As long as they last through June, which I expect they will,
I'll have saved money on (mostly) movies I'd have gone to see anyways.

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scarface74
New people signing up and using their service actually will accelerate their
demise. They pay the movie theatres full price.

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adjkant
They recently switched their pay model to upfront quarterly, which gives them
an influx of cash short term. Not a good sign for long term but it will keep
them afloat and allow everyone to burn VC money for a bit longer. In their
minds, I'm guessing that as long as they grow exponentially or close to, they
will eventually have the leverage over theatres they need to get a cut of
concessions.

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RIMR
This reminds me a lot of Jukely.

Jukely still lets you see a concert every day, but there are so many hidden
restrictions now that the service is practically unusable.

You can pay by the month, but certain shows force you into a three-month
contract. You can pay for a +1, but some shows don't let you claim more than a
single ticket (a dealbreaker for me, since I share the service with my wife).

And the quality of the shows has gone down the toilet. I was seeing some big
names when the service was new, but now I just get crappy artists that can
barely fill half a venue. Of course, all of the sought-after artists have the
aforementioned restrictions.

This kind of subscription service seems always doomed to fail.

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dawnerd
Never heard of them before. From the looks of it (being as they mention saying
you're on a guest list) they're acting like a promoter and using their block
of tickets for subscribers. That's an interesting way to go about it (if thats
what they're doing).

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coenhyde
What they need to do is target parents, then they'll be raking it in. I've had
MoviePass for 4 months and haven't had a chance to use it yet.

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mike_n
also, you are the product, of course --
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/05/moviepass-ceo-proudly-
says...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/05/moviepass-ceo-proudly-says-the-app-
tracks-your-location-before-and-after-movies/)

kinda crappy business model... but kudos to them for being transparent about
it, i guess?

also, there really hasn't been more than 1 good new movie per month on average
lately. mostly it's just kids movies and superhero stuff. i'd say i'm breaking
even on it.

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cyclonetiger
This is on top of only allowing new users to watch four movies per month.

Cinemark has a 8.99 a month plan where you get one movie credit per month, and
they roll over the credit if you don't use it. That's starting to sound like a
far better offer.

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calbear81
The credit only persists as long as your account is active so if you accrue a
bunch of tickets and then cancel, you also lose your tickets.

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Spivak
Haha, well you at least have to give them credit for trying.

> We hope this will encourage you to see new movies and enjoy something
> different!

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ChuckMcM
That is sort of hilarious. I still don't understand how you grow a business
which currently consists of taking money from venture capitalists and giving
it to people so they can go to the movies. The VC's would get more mileage out
of it if they just rented a showing of a movie every day and offered it free
to whomever wanted to do if they wouldn't mind sitting through a 30 minute
pitch that would feature one of their portfolio companies. And they locked the
doors so you couldn't skip the pitch.

At least that way they could be helping to mitigate the customer acquisition
cost of their portfolio companies with no reduction in the efficiency of movie
pass (actually better efficiency since they wouldn't have to pay any moviepass
employees!)

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drewmol
Makes me wonder if the small subset of people who would regularly watch the
same movie multiple times in a theater are: (1) movie buffs, highly likely to
see _a movie_ even if it can't be the same, and (2) high concession spenders?

If it's not sold out, seems a bit like licensing already built software: (if
it's going unused and doesn't cost to on-board new users or otherwise affect
higher paying customers, might as well get butts in the seats)

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0xCMP
In my experience people who have access to a theater during their daily
work/chores/gym-run/etc. will buy tons of tickets using their account to help
get groups in to a movie.

I saw black panther for free thanks to my friend getting like 8 tickets for 6
of us. He had so many tickets he didn't even know where all of them were or
how many he had so we found another couple in his car a few days later.

Movie pass just puts on the money on the card, but they're unaware of what
you're actually buying with that. You can buy the same movie for a date in the
future over multiple days. I'm sure many will try to do the same using up
movies they don't care about.

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djrogers
You do know that's fraud, right?

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bdcravens
Only if it's an individual doing it. If a startup finds a way to cheat/hack
the system, it's called "disruption".

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awat
Slightly off-topic but this sentiment always reminds me of the saying “any
crime that happens above street-level is called politics”

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circa
They did just introduce this feature in like January too. I'm surprised this
is what they're revoking. Must be a lot of repeat offenders.

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guidedlight
MoviePass is great for kids... who have a tendency to watch the same movie
again and again.

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s2g
I thought they never did?

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kp1
No one is forcing you to use their "services." Stop using their app?

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quadrangle
No one is forcing you to think critically about anything in the world or read
critical comments from others. Stop using this website?

(You can just copy and paste your comment for every complaint about any
business ever other than true monopolies for truly essential things; you'll
never have to discuss and consider any concerns ever again.)

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kp1
Wow, who crapped in your Cheerios?

With recent shenanigans MoviePass I wonder why people use their app. That's
why I made the comment.

Why use a service that restricts you? Tracks you (now removed)? Go from
unlimited movies, to restrictions?

Why use something that you have to pay for and NOT get much value for it? Just
go to the movie theater like everyone else?

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quadrangle
I hadn't even heard of MoviePass until seeing this posting at HN. I don't
watch movies, and MoviePass sounds ridiculous.

I was critiquing your comment because it had no substance and seemed anti-
intellectual. It actually sounded like what you see people write to _defend_
bull-crap like MoviePass, as in "Don't like Facebook's terrible actions? You
don't have to use it…" used as an argument against people complaining (as
opposed to an argument that people should leave Facebook because the
complaints are legitimate).

Maybe it was just a misunderstanding. Seems you didn't do a good job of making
your initial point, and I replied to the words I read.

