MoviePass announced their their new, improved, and unrestricted plans in August. We all knew the $10 a month plan was not going to be profitably by itself. In the last week they have started blocking out specific movies, requiring some users to provide photographic proof of their ticket purchases, and bragged about collecting data outside what is described in their TOS. This is after already locking out customers from using the service at some of AMC's flagship theaters. Who had it had it at roughly 6 months before MoviePass started running out of money and needed to resort to trying to milk every last cent out of the theaters, studios, and moviegoers?
> We all knew the $10 a month plan was not going to be profitably by itself.
How is this kind of "growth hack" not simply dumping[1]? The only new development here is that dumping is no longer limited to large companies with large war chests thanks to the availability of venture capital.
The more interesting question is can healthy, truly profitable technology companies develop in an environment where they have to compete with startups that are ready and willing to undercut them by losing tons of investor money. I don't think the current status quo is good for the long term health of the valley.
I don't think the environment will stay like this for long.
Investors in MoviePass will likely not make their money back. Or maybe they'll break even on a sale of assets to some major theater chain, if everyone involved is smart.
Afterward, future investors in companies like this will use MoviePass as another example for the fact the times when you could form a business mostly based on collecting user data is over. The stakes have changed, the goalposts have moved; Google/Facebook sized ingestion of user data is still very profitable, but now startups have to compete with that. So MoviePass knows which movies I go see and where I go before and after... Google knows where I am literally all the time.
They really should have started from day 1 trying to play ball with the theater chains. Theaters always made most of their money on concessions; incentivize upsells into that and get subsidies on ticket prices from the chains. Instead, they burned every bridge with the theaters they could have hoped to make. They'll pay for it.
People going to theaters is on the decline. If MoviePass reverses that trend they will have shown their value. I'm going to wager they're at a tipping point.
"lack of crowds at theaters" > I am also not a crowd lover, i too love it when visiting not so popular theaters where i could stretch myself in between the movie, but sad thing is it won't last long isn't it.. either the theatre closes down or the maintenance goes really low it starts to stink..
That is strange to me. For me there is no other feeling like enjoying a movie with hundreds of strangers. Everyone laughing at the same time, people choking back tears, the "class clown" that hoots and hollers at the appropriate time. When the local theater started serving dinner and beer my friends and I became regulars again. Maybe it's just a nostalgic Oregon Trail Generation thing?
> the "class clown" that hoots and hollers at the appropriate time
This is exactly why I don't like theaters. I go to enjoy the movie, not have a shared social event. The extend of the 'social' aspect is my wife or friend next to me maybe getting an ear whisper, but even that is rare. If I want a shared social movie event I'll go watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Complimentary anecdote: I grew up playing Oregon Trail on the Macintosh, yet I also make a point to always wait at least a week before seeing any movie release so 1) the crowds die down, and specifically 2) so everyone there is there to see the movie and is unlikely to make any sort of noise (ESPECIALLY the class clown, who IMO ruins the movie-going experience)--ideally so I feel like I have the gigantic screen all to myself. If I _did_ have a theater-sized screen all to myself, I'd never go to the movies.
Maybe it's something like an introvert/extrovert thing, rather than a generational thing?
If I had more free time, I would get it in a heartbeat (and install/uninstall as needed to keep my privacy). My first job was at a movie theater, and I saw 5-7 movies a month from age 16 through 21. I miss seeing movies in theaters, but with kids and work, it's hard to find the time, and when I do it's about $75 to get the family in. That's not cheap.
But Moviepass’s investors won’t be the ones walking away with anything of value. The big theater chains & Disney were just delivered a product market fit for free. Better than free, because all of the Moviepass money went to them.
Theatres will have to find some other way to draw crowds, or they will be replaced by stores and restaurants that make more money per unit area.
I suspect if they do find some other way, it will be based on some relatively new technology (perhaps already existing, like smartphones, or up-and-coming like some kind of AR), or it would have happened already.
I've been trying to thing of a movie theatre / lan party combo, but haven't been able to come up with anything useful.
There's a theater chain in my area that is always crowded and does really well: Alamo Drafthouse.
Their pitch? Pretty much comes down to good service including food and cocktails, at low prices, and a no-noise policy.
You buy a ticket ahead of time picking your exact seats. Tickets are about $11. The pre-show instead of being ads are usually short videos or clips from earlier movies. Food is around $12-16 an entree, alcoholic beverages are between $6 and $20 with most cocktails around $12.
Oh, and if they see your phone or if you're talking during the movie, you get kicked out with the option to be banned.
It's an amazing movie experience, and I regularly go at least once a month. Their food is genuinely good restaurant quality and their drinks are creative, often times with special cocktails or entrees to go along with big releases. It's obviously not an every day thing, but it's cheap enough to be a once a week kind of thing.
> You buy a ticket ahead of time picking your exact seats.
the whole package sounds great, but I would be sold on this detail alone. I hate having to choose between sitting in the theater for 30-45 mins and getting a bad seat at popular films.
I met both the CEO and their investor recently at a conference where they presented. Both are very happy with the growth and the revenues.
They are currently breaking even, as their models predicted. Even paying full price for each ticket. Their innovation was getting Mastercard to issue and process their own card, so the movie theaters can't block them without violating Mastercard policy!
Now their next plans are to promote indie films and much more. I do not think they need all this tracking to make that happen. Also, Uber tracks you before and after the trip.
At Qbix we would never resort to this kind of thing, however the current movie theater model sucks and the prices just keep rising. And also the founder is the same guy who founded Netflix and Redbox! This would be the third time he is upending the movie industry.
My guess is that the plan was or is to demonstrate that a subscription model can fill mostly empty theatres, while providing theaters with more stable revenue than they currently experience.
From there, the question is what to price the subscription at. It could be that revenue sharing on $10/mo with a couple added restrictions (No opening weekends) will provide theatres with more than they're currently making.
> How is this kind of "growth hack" not simply dumping[1]?
"Dumping" is bad because it harms unsubsidized competitors. (It also pits foreign governments against private companies.) I fail to see who MoviePass hurt except its own investors.
> Can healthy, truly profitable technology companies develop in an environment where they have to compete with startups that are ready and willing to undercut them by losing tons of investor money
> I fail to see who MoviePass hurt except its own investors.
Games on the iOS App Store are generally free (or 99 cents). It is not profitable to recoup your costs by selling the product, because consumers will not pay for an app that costs more money than $1. In order to sustain this environment, the industry has moved to selling data, ads, and other sort of nonsense.
Let's suggest that MoviePass successfully "disrupts" the industry and then gets bought out or dies. What happens if this disruption permanently causes admissions revenue to go down, because consumers expect $10, and as such, movies to be substantially more unprofitable to make?
This sort of long-term "environmental impact" never seems to come up as long as we can pile more ads and tracking on top to make up the difference in unreasonable business models.
> because consumers will not pay for an app that costs more money than $1
I'm quite the opposite.
If a game on the play store is low priced/free and contain the "in-app"-purchases label I run far away.
It's a bit sad as some use this method as a demo with only a "full game" unlock in-app and I won't know. But I've been burned by that in the past, i.e. buy a full version without adds of a game and having the "full version" destroyed by adds a year later.
I'm generally extremely wary of buying anything on the play store now and have resorted to only using mail, signal, firefox with ad-block and my public transportation ticket app.. And the PS4 apps
Not sure if Play Store has the same thing, but the App Store lets you expand the IAPs if you scroll down, so you can see whether it's just a full game unlock or garbage ingame currencies.
The consumers that bought expensive games aren't the same ones that expect to pay 0.99$ for a game so the comparison doesn't really apply. In particular, people still pay $50 for a game.
>"Dumping" is bad because it harms unsubsidized competitors. (It also pits foreign governments against private companies.) I fail to see who MoviePass hurt except its own investors.
Everyone who might have started a competing company but did the math to figure out they would have to charge more?
>Lyft seems to be doing fine.
Hasn't Lyft been spending billions of dollars without posting a profit just like Uber?
Point well taken, but in the case of MoviePass I'm not sure this is a bad thing?
I can see how it's a long-term harm if a value-adding startup is shut out by a competitor which relies on burning investor money. But I really can't work out what value-added startup MoviePass could be displacing; effectively the only benefit for consumers is the artificially low pricing. It seems like "VC money pit" is the entire story for this one.
Yep... it did sound unfeasible. This is sad, cause it's a matter of pricing. At $20 it's still worth it.
In Paris, there is a subscription that lets you access 75% of theaters (2 big chains and most independent theaters) for 20ish euros a month. A normal ticket is 10 euros. This has existing for 10+ years, and they didn't need a tracking app...
I had it back in the days, and the pricepoint was such that you needed to be a heavy user for it to make sense (at least 3 movies a month). Back in the days I was a student ands went to see almost every single movie, so the price made sense.
But at 20$ I would not take moviepass. As an adult, I don't want to commit pr force myself to 3 movies a month.
10$ is the cutoff for me ?(and I believe for most of the busy people), as I'm trying to go once or twice a month, for movies that I would mostly not "pay for".
Also, UGC unlimited is very different as it is managed by the theater chain itself, meaning that only need to pay the marginal cost of the ticket, while MoviePass need to pay the full public price of the ticket for each movie you go watch.
This was always part of the terms from day one. Shouldn't surprise anyone.
Also while not specifically noted in the terms, it should be assumed they'd track your location since it spells out that you can only miss/walk out of a movie (if I remember correctly) once a month.
There was a notice buried in the TOS that they could restrict movies but the marketing material and press they did when they switched to $10 plans was that any regularly priced 2D movie at participating theaters was allowed. This week they started actively blocking certain new movies like Red Sparrow and Death Wish in order to try to direct users to other movies or specific theaters.
It is clear that this weekend was a proof of concept for MoviePass to see if they can alter the bottom line for specific movies and theaters. If they got positive results from this weekend's test, you can bet the data will be forwarded to every theater and studio in the industry to show how much of an impact MoviePass has and then it becomes an extortion racket.
This was all expected from the start, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing that MoviePass is now making that pivot from a company that sells a service to the general public to a company that sells the general public to other businesses as a service.
I don’t think they have any actual awareness of what movie is being bought on the card since it’s just money being loaded and a charge from the “Theater”. So if you wanted to watch Red Sparrow, just check into any movie and then buy the Red Sparrow ticket and run the card.
Exactly why Im making the most out of my subscription while I can. I can see it either going away or prices going way up. There have been talks and rumors from their surveys and tos updates that they will eventually offer more expensive plans for premium showings and family plans.
This was my feeling too. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is expected to freely give away their data, but if I can do it voluntarily to get get a deal as good as MoviePass then that's a win/win to me. It's $15 for just -one- ticket in my area. MoviePass has been a game changer for me.
The catch here is that no customers of theirs were given a chance to do so voluntarily. They purposefully misled customers so even though it's nice you don't care, others who do fell into the trap. That's fucked up.
Do you have a link on that or are you talking about the current article? I believe you but I wasn't one of the early adopters of MoviePass so by the time I joined I skimmed the contract, nodded, and thought "Got it, you spy on me and I get cheap stuff."
I'm not sure why your tone is so hostile when I was just asking a clarifying question. More to your point, I don't see what part of the ToS you found especially convoluted, but since your estimate about the length is so exaggerated I doubt you actually read it. The wording was boring but clear and its formatting wasn't particularly mysterious either.
If your point is more generally that we shouldn't be able to just skim a ToS and give consent, what's your alternative that doesn't destroy the ability of online businesses to engage in these kinds of agreements?
Edit: I'm adding this here because I can't reply to the comment below me by s73v3r_ 26.
You in particular might not care, but there are a lot of people who feel like these businesses provide valuable services and don't mind being expected to actually be accountable for the things they agree to. If you don't like ToS businesses online, come up with an alternative. Otherwise, unless your plan is just to go on a tirade, you need to at least try to consider an alternative to outright destruction or your argument is going to lose all of its persuasive power when talking to people who do value these services.
Ok, its 11 pages, which according to http://niram.org/read/ should take 32 minutes to read, can be updated at any time, and contains such language as
You agree to indemnify and hold MoviePass, its officers,
directors, shareholders, predecessors, successors in interest,
employees, agents, subsidiaries and affiliates, harmless from
any demands, loss, liability, claims or expenses (including
attorneys' fees), made against MoviePass by any third party
due to or arising out of or in connection with your use of the
MoviePass Service or Site.
and
MoviePass's obligations, if any, with regard to its products
and services are governed solely by the agreements pursuant
to which they are provided, and nothing on this Site should be
construed to alter such agreements.
These kind of terms could have very unexpected consequences, and you need real legal expertise to decipher exactly what that means.
The only two words that are beyond what's taught in highschool in those quoted passages are "indemnify" and "pursuant" neither of which is actually too complex to understand from a cursory google search. The sentence structure is straightforward and it's grammatically clear that the parties listed are all part of the clause pertaining to who you agree to indemnify. The bulk of your argument is that it's unfair to expect people to have a basic level of reading comprehension for a transaction that's entirely voluntary on their part. I don't see the great crime against humanity you're trying to establish here.
While I legitimately enjoyed your pedantry, we both know that the point they were failing to make was that language seems overly broad in scope. Reading that first block, one could make a case that Moviepass could hold it’s users responsible for any and all claims made against it. Like if an upset movies studio sued them? Unlikely but plausible. I would expect this sort of language in an insurance policy, not a glorified coupon book.
The thing that makes legalese prone to misinterpretation is not the complexity of the words or grammar used. It's that the interpretation of a paragraph is different for a lawyer (or court) than it is for a lay-person. Just because you understood all of the words doesn't mean you actually understood the text (this is of course ignoring how insanely over-the-top the quoted paragraphs are, and the length of the text itself).
When you go through a law degree you have several subjects dedicated to "learning how to read a legal document". If it just required high school literacy, why would you ask very intelligent people to go through a literacy course in university? Because there is more to reading a legal document (such as knowing precedents in contract law, how courts interpret certain conditions, what the agreement means in the context of any related laws, and so on) than just knowing what the words mean.
Any app that asks for your location can and will track you. This is so lucrative that Foursquare pivoted the whole company around the concept of location data as a service (https://enterprise.foursquare.com/).
Fortunately, you just need to revoke the permission (or don't grant it in the first place) if you want to avoid being tracked. If you're concerned about this, I'd definitely suggest doing a quick check of the apps that track your location and disable the permission in the ones that you distrust.
I will never understand why people leave Location Services on all the time.
I don't even install apps that request location when it isn't necessary for my needs (active geolocation, like mapping if I'm lost, hikes, and such).
For Moviepass, and for the rare cases where I am lost or really need active directions, I turn Location services on. Then, it gets immediately shut off. (Similarly, I keep Bluetooth and NFC off except when in active, intended use.)
In fact, for Moviepass and other apps that require locations, I install them on a secondary phone that I use only for nosy apps. It just stays in the car. (This is a good use for an old phone without a SIM; most apps will run fine over WiFi.)
And when apps want to update and in the process try to add permissions they didn't originally seek and have no business using (e.g. Stubhub, Magnifier, Flashlight+), I just don't let them update.
People have different valuations. I turn on Location Timeline and allow Google to record my location 24x7, because I find it useful to be able to know where I was any arbitrary day or time.
A negative view, sure. But 'close-minded' implies it's an unexamined decision, and that's certainly not the case for me or many other HN users.
My essential stance on data-gathering (and especially location data or communication metadata) is that it represents an irreversible erosion of privacy, and in many cases compromises the privacy of other people who never consented to share their data.
I've used services that (effectively) traded my data for cash, but I think there's a compelling argument that ill-defined location monitoring is underestimated as a personal risk and acutely underestimated as a source of externalities. This is up for debate, certainly, but 'close-minded' seems to presume the answer and deny the possibility of those externalities.
The pros you get are a luxury, while the cons are an infringement on our privacy.
We're at the point where you sharing your data harms everyone else. For example, if there are 1000 people in a population and 999 willing share all data on themselves, the last holdout doesn't need to offer his data. They can already derive it from based on everyone else's.
You have to explain why I'm supposed to care that MoviePass knows where I am when I'm near a theater (i.e. why is this a con). You're acting like this is obvious, but it's not. All your work is ahead of you.
MoviePass knows where I am when I'm near a theater
That's not the risk -- Moviepass knows you are there at that time simply by your usage metrics.
The problem is that (1) other apps have Location access while you have Location services on if you have ever granted that privilege, including only at install time, and (2) few people have the presence of mind to turn Location on and back off promptly so that it's only on when the user is conscious of it.
Because they give that information to 3rd parties who have a larger database about you in which to add it. Privacy is a basic human right and everyone wants it. You wouldn't willingly offer all data about yourself and livestream a camera of yourself 24/7 for everyone to see. I also already gave you a reason on how this harms people who don't want to give up any data on themselves.
The degree is the difference and it's a big one. We all trade privacy for other benefits all the time. If the right to privacy is fundamental, then surely I can claim the right to trade that privacy for something else, too.
(Note: we all do this all the time in both explicit and implicit ways. We give away private data to obtain loans, we invite people into our homes and to view our bodies, we tell important secrets to build relationships. Privacy is valuable, and we use it like it's valuable. That's what's going on here, too.)
One thing that is clever about MoviePass, is that in order to use their membership, one must have location services activated at least for a brief instant every time they are going to the movie. Indeed, you need to “check in” in the app when you’re within a 100 yard radius of the theater in order to be able to charge the ticket price to the MoviePass-provided payment card. Odds are, most people won’t want (or remember) to turn location services on and off every time they purchase a ticket.
iOS 11 introduced the ability to allow apps to only access your location while you're actively using the app. Using this method should be a good mitigation.
From Apple: "When Location Services is active, a black or white arrow icon appears in the status bar."
If Waze is using it for up to 40 minutes after traveling, you need to decide if you want to know where the cops are or if you want Google to know where you are.
I'm really over trying to fight companies on this on an app-by-app basis. If we want this to stop, it has to be through legislation. Either we allow companies to do it and stop acting shocked when it happens, or we legislate the possibility away.
I prefer non-legislative way. Mobile OSes are already doing something towards this. Notification warning like "app X is using your GPS" - even though it's closed or even though your screen is off. Or only allowing GPS usage while the app is on your screen.
I don't think many people care though. And even if you disagree on that, I think it should be their right to sell their privacy for convenience if they want to.
iOS (as of version 11) gives you an option to force "Only while using the app" access for location services.
The change was probably triggered by Uber's creepy "we're going to track you for several minutes after you get out of the car" thing last year. Generated a lot of media attention and Uber has since stopped doing it.
Mobile OSes and web APIs should have distinct permissions for foreground location data and background location data. I'll gladly give my current location in exchange for temporary convenience, but the way it works now I have to give my location away from now until such time as I uninstall the app or jump through the hoops necessary to revoke permission.
I definitely have complaints about the existing business models of companies that do this, like opaque (or outright dishonest) TOS. But I agree that privacy legislation is far from the only obvious answer.
Ideally, I'd have control over the location data my phone provides at the active-app, installed-app, and total-shutoff levels. I don't actually mind giving out location data, I just want to know and make a choice when it happens. Fortunately, iOS is rapidly headed that way, and Android has made some promising moves.
I do think there's a slightly scarier conversation to be had about the externalities of "selling privacy", though. The Facebook 'shadow profile' situation is the obvious demonstration, but far from the scariest possibility. The possibility of building up a near-comprehensive profile of someone from other people's location, image, and messaging data raises real questions about what it even means to talk about 'personal privacy' in any public setting.
I don't know why everyone is always so shocked. People want smart devices/services that understand them. Where do you think the data comes from? From you!
This can be used to excuse the worst kind of behaviour. Maybe if MoviePass can't operate profitably without violating people's privacy, it's just not a good startup idea.
But since a million people are happy to sell their location data for movie tickets, it is a good startup idea. To say otherwise an excuse to restrict other users' freedom, a pretty bad behavior.
> But since a million people are happy to sell their location data for movie tickets, it is a good startup idea. To say otherwise an excuse to restrict other users' freedom, a pretty bad behavior.
It is a different story if they are upfront with what MoviePass is using it's users' location data for.
That's the struggle. Virtually unlimited movie tickets each month for the price of one movie ticket a month sounds too good to be true because it is. There's no way for this to work without some other source of revenue. If you would like the option to pay more and NOT be tracked, we just call that buying movie tickets and you've been able to do it all along.
But as a consumer I don't care what MoviePass wants or needs, that's not my problem. I'd milk them for all the tickets they're worth and then when they shutter I'd just go back to buying tickets like I used to for decades past. They offer marginal convenience at best for something that really wasn't all the inconvenient to begin with.
I think it's because there is no apparent user facing feature that uses this data. In the future they may get parking related features, or deeper ride share integrations. But because they're not upfront with how they are using the data, and their are currently 0 user facing features it seems unwarranted.
The market equilibrium rests where you can extract maximum value, if they can get away with tracking, they will do it, it has absolutely nothing to do with it being a fair deal or not.
Moreover how can our government condemn commercial data mining while at the same time expanding domestic surveillance? "Don't share your data its harmful! Unless you share it with us!".
Just because we have not made progress in domestic surveillance does not mean we can't make progress in commercial data mining. It may be hypocritical to have one at the rate we do and legislate the other (though I don't think it necessarily is), but it's better to do that than to have both.
Back when the US Constitution was drafted, there was virtually no commercial data gathering. So we arguably need the Fourth Amendment extended to the commercial sector. Maybe also the First Amendment.
Why is a one size fits all government solution better? You control your phone and the apps on it. Don’t like the app tracking your location before and after movies? Kill it or limit it to While Using (if on iOS). And you can always uninstall it.
Why don't you do what I did and put your money where your mouth is. Go back to using an old style text message only mobile like a nokia (other brands are available). It is such a joy to have a simple communications device. Do it!
Should the government also ban the possibility of ad-supported websites? Technology costs money and if there is a way to subsidize or remove the cost faced by consumers that isn't always a bad thing.
Transparency of "this is how we are able to provide you a free app/service" could be improved, though.
Well, the government benefits from scarcely regulated data gatherers. While the law doesn't seem to matter these days, the government has long used the data of private companies which it can't legally collect.
Probably the likeliest solution is at the software level. There's no reason there couldn't be software to send fake locations to apps that you don't make an explicit exception for.
Rare is the problem that legislation actually solves.
And
People don't want to pay for apps with money, they "just want them". So they pay with their data. The problem here isn't with the transaction, the problem is people are in the dark with what they are actually paying with.
Companies are allowed to do this. Their TOS protects them.
The quantities of money are so low, and the deal I'm getting back is so good I barely care. Then again, I was paying 30/month for moviepass when it just came out years ago.
The sad part is that AMC doesn't have an unlimited plan. Growing up in France I had the UGC illimite pass[1]. Moving to the US killed my movie-going habits from twice a week to maybe once every other month. Then of course moviepass came along and I was confused at how cheap it was. I mean, can't we have a regular pass for 50/month no imax from AMC and call it a day? Someone, either the studios, AMC, or me, is brain-dead and I can't figure out which one it is.
I go maybe once every two years. Afterwards I feel empty asking myself "Was this really worth 12 euro?". Then I don't go for another two years until I forget the feeling. It was always like this even when I was a kid. I preffered Lego and books (and computer when that got available). Movies were always a letdown.
Moviepass is going to get more and more desperate as their money runs out. I don't have Moviepass but it's fun to think of how they could sell out their users in the future.
Like maybe they could force users to write 500-word reviews? Or better yet record their faces so sentiment analysis algorithms can track users every feeling during a movie? Maybe ask users to spot product placement in movies - you don't get the movie free unless you enter every product spotted and write your thoughts about it. Maybe they could force women users to sit next to creepy men users who pay for that "extra service?" There's no limit to how you can innovate when you have no respect for your users.
Overall, MoviePass is a step forward for privacy advocates and a benefit to "netizens".
MoviePass just set the price for your data; an abstract possession that people are barely beginning to value as an actual possession of theirs. The going price for tracking your purchasing behaviors before and after attending a movie is the cost of however many movies you can see in a month minus $10.
Facebook paid with a social networking platform to connect you to an unimaginable number of people you probably wouldn't be connected with otherwise. For that, you gave them your history and your super-ego.
Google gave you a map, an email, a phone number, and a bunch of productivity tools. For that you gave them everything.
The value of your data is holding steady or going up, depending on your perspective.
Also, MoviePass took a step in the right direction towards disclosure of intent when their CEO opened his mouth about it. Their TOS is typical, but the CEO is more transparent than most. They should be the brave first company to make their intention transparent.
> The going price for tracking your purchasing behaviors before and after attending a movie is the cost of however many movies you can see in a month minus $10.
Well, it's the value to you of however many movies you can see in a month, minus $10. That's likely very different than the nominal cost of all those movies, since MoviePass is likely to cause you to see more movies than you otherwise would.
As far as I'm concerned, it would hardly matter if the theaters charged $0 for movies.
My family almost always goes to the movies for a "family date night". Last night our concession stand bill was over $60, and that's just because I din't have a drink and we didn't get popcorn.
The theater we pretty much exclusively go to is one of those fancy places with the power recliners and food, so we will usually eat dinner there.
I know, this is choices we make when seeing a movie. But, I can't AFFORD to get unlimited movies for $10/month. :-)
What theater lets you bring in outside food/drink? I've never heard of the practice, outside of theaters that let you bring your own growler for them to fill.
From my understanding, the bet that MoviePass is making is that they will be able to sell user/usage data to studios (or others) to make back the money that they're losing paying full price on the tickets; they've even admitted this in other interviews... just without specifying what data. Even if it's not location data, I would imagine that any/all data they can associate with a user they will.
I doubt it. That data isn’t worth more than the movie admission.
The real goal is probably more like ticket scalpers... see how pricing motivates behavior and now demand can be shaped. The value generator would be either tiering the service offering or charging a premium for certain movies.
If they can demonstrate that flat rate pricing generates demand for movie viewing, even for shitty movies, they could buy excess inventory and give away shit movies or slack times and charge a premium for good movies or peak times.
It is almost certainly achievable. Back in my high school/college days I had access to unlimited free movies through various means. I saw every movie in the theaters from 1996-1999. We could get into hot movies the first week, so we watched whatever was available.
They will DEFINITELY run into trouble with Apple's app store policy. Apple doesn't outright ban apps that do this but they have to clearly state what they do when requesting location services permissions. There is a string called "app explanation" that has to state what they will use it for. Theirs says:
"Find Theaters and movies near you, and be able to use the app to get tickets and the theaters."[1]
There's nothing about tracking you outside of that purpose. Nothing about your drive to the theater, nothing about where you go after. So if they're doing that or start doing that, they should and probably will get kicked out of the app store.
Having said that, I wonder if this is true for their iOS version or just Android. The privacy policy in their TOS is probably sufficiently vague to pass legal muster.[2]
[1] On iOS go to Settings > Location Services > MoviePass
[2] "we ask you to supply us with personal information so that we can provide, enhance and personalize our services and marketing efforts" https://www.moviepass.com/privacy/
"be able to use the app to get tickets and the theaters." is this simply a typo that should be "and TO the theatres"? That would make sense if it actually gave you directions to get there at least...
Yes, this is kinda annoying and yes, we're losing our privacy little by little but please, give me a break with the fake bewilderment.
It's an explicit permission (on iOS at least) to use GPS when you're not in an app. This journalist is in total shock that the app actually uses this permission to try to make money. Come on.
And it doesn't even ask for the background location permission, so unless it has magical superpowers, it isn't going to be able to track you unless have the app open.
This is a really bad article, and I am shocked, just shocked, to see reporting of such poor quality on TechCrunch.
Jokes on them, I've purchased all of my tickets via an Android Emulator and GPS spoofing. I've got it setup such that I text my home box that it's "movie time" and I get a response as soon as the app says the card is loaded.
Half jokingly , I thought about doing the same thing and "Milk" the service. That is use as many subscription as you have family members//friends, buy one ticket a day and sell them all back on Craigslist for 25% less.
I would never do it of course, but I'm surprised nobody is doing it.
The way TechCrunch presents this, it seems even shadier than Uber's "we'll track you for the 5 minutes after you get dropped off" tactic from last year.
With no language addressing such tracking in the EULA, how is that legal?
Sure they expressly said they don't in their Privacy Policy but then the CEO admitted they do in fact, but the T&C allow forced arbitration and no class actions.
Unless the government wants to make a statement by pursuing them, there is no recourse except public shaming.
Yeah, I believe the rationale was to know better where entrances and exits are to certain buildings. The idea is a good one, but many people were up in arms about tracking that wasn't expressly during the interaction with Uber the company.
A monthly subscription cost for "unlimited" movies priced lower than the price of a single movie?
Mind you, my mum wouldn't understand that at that point she's the product. However, the ol' "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" is something everyone should know.
I don't agree with MoviePass' approach - which is the reason I haven't subscribed - but unless it's blatantly illegal I think it's safe to presume they'll do anything to make a buck.
MoviePass is too good to be true. Let's not be naive. Let's cut back on the fake outrage.
Unfortunately it's the world we live in now. Unless iOS is so compromised (wouldn't be surprised) that MoviePass can read data from other apps, an app that runs temporarily for me to check into a movie and I can turn location services on/off and see unlimited movies for $8/month is pretty great! Sure, a little more work (few seconds?) to turn location services on/off a few times a month but in general I think it's worth it.
The more value I can get circumventing businesses where the model is to collect and sell data, the better. I love the niche model of pay a little bit of money, get more value back and have the option to be tracked by a device that I control better than a lot of the shady "free" companies (facebook, pinterest, instagram, nextdoor, google, etc)
I think that's the thing people are upset about: Many of these deceptive practices are not illegal, and probably should be. The EU has a good start with their new data privacy legislation; the US needs to adopt that.
Hasn't it been demonstrated that apps can track user location even without requesting location or WiFi access?
Android apps can track a user's location and glean potentially
private, personal information – such as where you work or live
– just by monitoring the internal sensors. More importantly,
they can do this without ever needing access to a device's GPS
or Wi-Fi permissions.
Source: Are your apps secretly stalking you? Android phones can be used to track you without permission [1]
Without setting location access to "always", this shouldn't be possible, right? He might only be talking about the customers who have it enabled. So yeah, will wait for the clarification.
An Android, it also asks for permission to read all your photos and you can't use the app if you don't accept. I only run the app on an old iPhone I had lying around for that reason.
I know that you didn't go out and buy the iPhone just for this purpose, but dang, this might be the pinnacle of modern consumerism. "I have a spare smartphone to use for apps that I don't want on my main smartphone."
Heh. I prefer Android and my wife uses iPhones, so if I want to run any iOS apps I have to make do with her old iPhone 5. So maybe not the pinnacle of consumerism, but I'm certainly lucky to be able to hoard old tech.
Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable? If not, it sounds like grounds to be reported and removed from Google Play as malware. I thought that would be 100% against the developer rules. Maybe it is just a guideline to only ask permission for things you need, and to let the user use the app even if permission isn't granted.
Maybe it's just that Google won't feature you or something. But it should be against Play Store rules if it isn't already.
From experience, Google does flag up permission usage as part of featuring. Insofar as listing all the ones that are used and requesting an explanation of why each is needed.
Not that I know of. It's never even asked for that kind of thing on the iPhone version so it's pretty confusing.
Edit: according to old posts on a support forum, it might ask for a photo of your ticket stub. That doesn't explain why it wants access to your own photos, which is a different permission on Android from getting access to your camera.
> Is there a use case in the app that makes that somewhat reasonable.
Maybe image recognition to see the kinds of things you're eating/considering buying before/after going to the movies?
This seems pretty reasonable to me. I consider it a fair trade for the monetary discount they're offering on their services.
I don't want to spend $10-$15 whenever I want to go to the movies. But I'm more than happy to provide access to my data and photos which I have no way to easily convert to monetary value.
If I didn't feel this way, I just wouldn't use their service.
No, the reason for accessing your Photos is to get the location and timestamp off of every one and build a nice little trail of where you are and where you go.
That doesn't seem too far fetched to me. Knowing where you go gives a lot of information about you, who you are, what you're interested in etc... That sounds valuable for targeted advertising.
If they ask for your permission to use your pictures and you give it, it shouldn't matter what they're doing. You could've said no and opted to not use their service.
It very much can and does matter. Asking for access to my photos so I can send one through a messaging service is hugely different than simply wanting to suck up all data about me.
I cannot wait until the US gets a privacy law like the new EU one. Then they would have to absolutely justify why they're collecting that.
> Asking for access to my photos so I can send one through a messaging service
MoviePass is not a messaging service though.
If they ask permission for your photos and you give it, you live with the consequences. Or you value your privacy more than MoviePass and choose to not use the service.
On Samsung devices you can put an app to sleep -- it gets no cycles when it's not running and can't even send you notifications. It's great for these kind of apps that you want to use but otherwise don't want running in the background.
My guess is that they don't collect the data themselves, but buy the location data from some other company. Then they can combine the location data with the movie data they collect themselves. Then they could either use that for advertising, or sell the bundled data along to advertisers for more money.
Slight tangent but is it the case that the vast majority of Android apps (like >99%) which ask for superfluous permissions that cannot be denied or revoked, are about to become illegal under GDPR?
It looks like much of what's going on here would already be illegal under the existing EU data protection rules, even without the GDPR. But does MoviePass operate within the EU?
Someone in an earlier thread about Moviepass posited that they are banking on making money on data, because they are losing money on the ticket portion.
The surprising thing is that the CEO admitted it so readily.
Why is that surprising. They were always up front about the data when they got acquired & dropped it to its current price. The new part is the location tracking (which thankfully you're now in charge of on an iPhone).
In the UK we have a chain of cinemas called Cineworld, they have a card that allows you to go to any movie, any time, for a 12 month sub of £17.90 a month. I'm practically always at the movies with this card. Between this, netflix and my parents sky account, it's rare that i'll miss a movie for the year.
I'm surprised the USA movie chains haven't aped this (or even that Cineworld wasn't aping the USA chains).
I was a MoviePass subscriber for about 4 months. But I noticed that international movies and few theaters are blocked, can't reserve tickets ahead of time as per TOS. With all these restrictions I didn't even watch any movies for a couple of months. So I just cancelled and subscribed to Sinemia (I am in no way related to this service).
Looking at their plans (https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans/) it's capped at 2 or 3 movies a day, available at any theater and in any format. You can also apparently buy advance tickets, which is a huge limitation for MoviePass.
Their business model seems more sustainable than MoviePass, too. Well, at least when it's not heavily reduced due to the Oscar promo.
The main advantage is reserving tickets via fandango or any other website that sells the tickets. Personally we didn't watch more than 2 movies a month in theaters, so this works great for us.
Their CS is very poor. The app, even the updated one, doesnt work very well and will sign you out randomly. You're allowed to check into sold out movies. They got rid of the largest supported AMC theaters. The company has so many downsides now. Before I was telling everyone to sign up now I'm talking about all this type of stuff.
This is why a company "privacy policy" doesn't mean anything - they can change it with no warning or just plain lie about it. The only purpose is to placate their users.
Maybe that's true in say the US, or some states in the US, but it isn't true everywhere. The EU is probably the biggest counterexample, with relatively strong privacy and data protection rules already, and almost draconian new rules for organisations that are working with personal data coming into effect later this year with the GDPR. A privacy policy is a part of the rules there, and misleading with one could get you in trouble with the regulators if someone complained.
We've stopped going to the movies since this service came out, and bought a bigger TV. We don't want to pay the movie food tax, movies are now packed with people and unpleasant to watch in our area, and it's just not an enjoyable experience.
Location-based tracking is totally common, and a serious business these days. This dataset will provide MoviePass with a huge and unique database, and they will prosper.
What nobody is talking about in this thread is that once they combine it with all of the other databases (profile, interest, etc), they will be able to track every single movie consumer from cradle to grave, from home to work, and on to the theater. They will know how your friends are, who you go to the movies with, where they live, who they know... this is all stuff that companies have been doing now since the early 2000s.
My point is that not only is this not illegal, it's relatively common. It might feel creepy, but this is the new normal. It's just not talked about very much. Google has a ton of this data, so does every cell provider, and of course someone mentioned foursquare, who realize that the location business was a better business than anything else they can build.
Also, the more we allow social media into our lives the richer these profiles become, because the qualitative data from social networks is the foundation of location networks. Where meets who meet when = datapoint.
In case you were wondering where all the mobile advertising revenue transitioned, start reading the T&Cs on the apps you download friends. :)
They can't be collecting data continuously if the location privacy setting is set to "While Using the App" on iOs. I remember Uber removed "While Using the App" option and provided only "Never" and "Always" options. And they got a lot of heat because of that.
It's getting close to a point where you should just bundle all of these apps onto an old android phone and use it just ad-hoc when you absolutely need them.
I don't see the big deal really, Google maps and the like has probably 100x the data plus the mean to make it evil. I don't really see what extra data they will have compare to just ticket sales. It seems just a bad VC bet, and you can take advantage of it.
Of course it does, why wouldn't it. The only thing preventing most companies from doing this to you is their ability manage the data effectively enough to turn a profit. Pure capitalism.
The oneplus variant of android, oxygenOS, allows you disable location services granularly per application. They continued the granular permissions system from CyanogenMod.
not sure about Android, but on iOS you can customize which apps have access to location data all the time (eg google maps) and which ones have it only while using (eg moviepass).
So if you open the app only to check-in in the theater, they shouldn't be able to access your whereabouts before/after that.
iOS explicitly lets me give location access to an app only when it is open. I was under the impression that it's a literal definition and that apps can't track me in the background. Is this a mistaken view?
Yes, all up until you need to check in for the movie. You have to be physically located within a set distance of the theater in order to load up funds on the credit card.
I never understood the concept behind this app anyway. You save money with tickets but are supposed to buy more overpriced food in the theatre? Thats not how you save money. Must be an American thing.
