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MoviePass Reveals Annual Subscription For $6.95 a Month (slashfilm.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: MoviePass seemed like the deal of the century: $10 a month to see one movie a day at the theaters? No contest. But in the three months since the start-up company seeking to disrupt the theater market with a Netflix-like service launched its new business model, MoviePass has been plagued by technical hiccups, backed-up deliveries, and potential lawsuits. As the company expanded its operations, it finally began to settle into its new subscription base of more than 600,000 users. And now MoviePass is already offering up a new deal: an up-front annual subscription of $89.95, which amounts to about $6.95 a month. But how much of a discount is it really? The MoviePass annual subscription is a limited-time promotion that will last 12 months, according to the website. Users pay $89.95 up front, plus a $6.55 processing fee. "Once your year is up, your plan will convert back into your $9.95 a month. Offer valid until it's not. Limit two per household," the MoviePass website says.
Why the hell would anyone want to waste their time watching modern movies? Most of them are reboots of reboots of reboots of some irrelevant comic book character. The rest of them tend to be shitty reworkings of movies that were successful in the 1980s and 1990s, but this time with "diversity" and "social justice" nonsense forced into the characters and storylines, even when doing this makes absolutely no sense. No, thanks. I'm not going to waste my time or money on stupid movies like those.
$89.95/12 = $7.50/month
($89.95+$6.55) / 12 = $8.04/month
I mean, 20% off is a fine deal, but it's no $6.95
on individual basis, expenses incurred by this company on behalf of a regular movie going subscriber, overwhelm its possible income.
business is supposedly built on assumption that most of its subscribers will not see even one movie a month.
but that seems foolish since subscribers who go to the trouble of paying upfront payment are likely to be people who will make use of their subscription.
so this is now basically using new subscriber cash for future year to pay for current month. so will need ever more new subscribers to service older ones. in other words, a pyramid schemes.
I had Movie Pass last year. First it was $29.95. Then, when I actually started watching a movie a day, they raised my rate to $39.95. They reduced the number of movies to be watched by telling me I could only see each movie once. Then they required me to take a picture of my ticket stub. The final straw was when they created a basic "lottery" of movies I could watch by issuing only a small number of tickets per film (so it became a first-come-first-served ticket.)
I've come back to Movie Pass because of the $9.95 price and it looks like they've relaxed nearly all the constraints. But I'm troubled by the small print...
2.4 MoviePass reserves the right to offer members a new price option if they exceed watching a certain amount of movies per month.
SO, while they advertise a movie a day, they will probably charge you more if you actually attempt it.
Not 89.95.
I'm really pissed enough about all those tack-on and "oh, we have to add this still" fees that get piled on the "ONLY!!!!" price so in the end you pay about as much as you did without the discount, if not more.
That alone means sorry, no sale. If you want to sell me something, tell me what it really costs. Anything else means you're trying to bullshit me.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I almost wonder if this is a way to rake in some additional revenue before the company goes belly up for any variety of reasons such as result of some ongoing litigation. If they're only going to be around for another 2 months, $89.95 seems like a hell of a lot better to them than the usual $20. Just enough time for a big round of bonuses for hitting various growth targets before the corpse of the company is picked over by various jackal^H^H^H^H^H^Hlawyers.
It seems to be the case that, every year, they come up with, at best, four or five movies worth watching in movie theaters. On this basis, the deal offered sucks.
Don't get me wrong, I love this service/company. I've seen 13 movies on it since mid September - a bunch I would have never seen otherwise. Which is likely a big plus to film makers and theaters right?
But this scheme kind of makes one wonder if they are trying to maximize cash intake before the company collapses. I hope that's not true and they stay around forever offering this sweet deal.
then when the "honeymoon" time is over they slam you. Almost all service providers use this trick. And I'm sick of it. Tell me what your going to charge me up front. Period!
I heard about this deal and checked out the MoviePass web site, including the Terms of Service. The terms are so bad I wouldn't get near this thing with a 10 foot box of popcorn. I notice that another poster above has already run afoul of the Terms of Service.
i can get movies in same quality from member ftps and torrent sites, for free. I do use a hacked netflix account now and then, but when it stops working i'll buy me another one for like $3, lol. Current one been active for 2 years...
The articles author is under a delusion that content isn't free as in beer. Looks like marketing induced brain damage, perhaps a psychiatric evaluation would be advisable?
I signed up when they announced the $9.95/month service. It works fine for me and I see about 3-4 movies/month with the MoviePass. Before I would see maybe 5 movies/year in a theater, by picking and choosing movies I really wanted to see and use discounted CostCo movie tickets ($8-$11/ticket) or catch the $6.49 matinee. Other movies that didn't make the cut, I'd wait for it to be on cable or DVD (library).
I would not pre-pay their annual fee though as I'm not sure when they might collapse since it appears they're having issues with AMC who dislikes this model and the movie theater I go to is an AMC. Recently, AMC refused to let me use their AMC Stubs club card (for $5 Tuesdays) and made me pay full price $12.99 (with the MoviePass card). I complained to MoviePass about this as I wanted to minimize the cost to MoviePass and keep them in business as long as possible. A few days later, I caught a matinee and AMC asked me if I had a Stubs membership and let me use it. So, not sure what the deal is.
So, that's my story.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In the UK two of the big cinema chains offer monthly subscriptions for ~ £17.90 month (or about $22 USD / month). Obviously this attracts only the very keen cinema goers (e.g. you need to see 2+ movies a month for it to be worth your while).
This offer seems to be on the cheep side - I suppose if they can attract the more casual cinemagoers then they could still make bank if their average user sees less than 1 movie a month.
Clearly they're not going to sustain this with paying for the full-fare tickets. Consumers will cancel their subscriptions if they think they're paying more for the service than the tickets would cost without it. Where this would work is if they could contract with the theaters to get lower rates for their members, so members still get a good deal, but the membership still makes money for MoviePass. If the average member sees 2.34 movies/month, then they would need to negotiate a ticket price of something like, $8/2.34 or $3.42/ticket. That probably doesn't work for theaters, at least during the first week a movie is out, but if the seats would be empty, and if the members are likely to buy concessions, then it would work.
So if we hear that MoviePass reaches deals with the movie chains, and if we see exclusions on the first week of new releases, then it starts to look like something they could sustain. Now they're probably burning through venture capital trying to grow large enough to negotiate those deals before they self destruct.
I've always heard that the actual ticket price is virtually meaningless. Theaters make their money off concession sales. The markup on movie popcorn is possibly the highest markup on the planet. And I assume that if you receive a ticket (even if it's free to you), the theaters are still paying the same amount as if you bought a full-price ticket to whoever receives that money, so it's not really a pyramid scheme at all? Everyone is still making about the same amount of money.
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All the cinemas have the same few big-budget crap movies!
Because the distributors forcd them to take them, and not show certain others, or else they will be cut off from all their future releases and go bankrupt.
(Of course implying anyone would want their crap in the first place. Which is circular reasoning. But when did you go to a n independent cinema the last time?)
That shit does not fly in most of Europe!
The cinemas here are clean, and everybody is quiet except of course in those scenes where the shared laugh or gasp etc is actually part of the fun.
Anyone who did bullshit like in the US, like throwing shit or talking too loud or having any kind of bright light or phone noises, will get you kicked out in under a minute. Repeat it, and you are banned.
The problem in the US is, that companies are spineless pussies, as smile-or-die positivism is enforced. So they do not dare to tell customers to fuck the fuck off, even when that results in everybody else fucking off.
And worst of all, the companied compensate this overly friendly front with overly sleazy and evil terms & conditions.
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Are there really that many movies released in the US over the course of a year? How many of those do you actually *WANT* to see?
Does anyone know how it's is conceivable that this is a sustainable business model? They don't even get a discount ticket price from the theater! Please tell me. If I pay them $90 for a year. I can see a movie every day? For that $90 in income this company might pay out to theaters $12 * 365 days a year for a total of $4,380. Even if I only see a movie once a week, they make $90 income but pay out $624. I really want to know how they make money. This seems like a complete scam!
Netflix lets me stream content. This lets me go to the theater to watch a movie at a discount.
How is this at all like Netflix?
It's tough to compete with companies like Netflix and Amazon. Netflix has a wide range of movies and TV shows while Amazon Prime offers great content as well. Hulu while still a major player I've fallen out of touch with. Cutting the cord with telecom companies is definitely a fast growing trend. I'm a little skeptical of new companies like this because it's a market that has already been tapped into by the major Tech companies. Pluto is great for free content as they profit from commhttps://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/17/11/17/1725231/moviepass-reveals-annual-subscription-for-695-a-month#ercials much in the same way traditional cable used to be before it cost money.
1. I'm not paying a "processing fee"
2. Movies that do come out that are good, are not worth going to a movie theater 1-5x a year.
Remove the processing fee, let me pay month by month, then sure I'll test it.
they raise their rates uniformly and so rarely that it makes news when they do. my Crunchyroll account has been $7/mo for 6 years.
Now, my ISP does this, but that's because they have a monopoly and little or no regulatory oversight. Hmm....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What's with all the anti- Chris/creimer comments? Are you some kind of bully?
Yeah, it's off topic but how often does the U.S. Navy draw a penis in the sky?
http://www.bbc.com/news/420326...
Moviepass? WTF?
A fat man shitposts and spams for years
calls other bullies
His name is Chris
I only have time for popcorn.
Remember when chris told that bully he would try to get the bully's children placed into foster care?
Poor chris.
Remember when chris dale reimer showed enthusiasm for the idea of buying and forcing a teenage girl to marry him? Poor chris dale reimer, pen name C.D.Reimer ; ;
Remember this time when people were bullying fatass?
I don't think you understand. I don't need the money from Slashdot. It's just my way of pissing off my trolls by laughing all the way to the bank
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10981443&cid=55001623
Is someone really even a troll if you've deliberately baited them into action? I don't even know if it counts as bullying. You're a supreme idiot for intentionally pissing people off in a community you want to be part of, and then crying when pissed off people do mean things to you. I know children (NOT AVAILABLE FOR MARRIAGE) with greater levels of emotional maturity.
Or Chris is some kind of repulsive, unwanted, and unlikable pest? Ever consider that, Chris?
Nothing in our area. Closest theater it works at is 50 miles away. The two relatives that could use this can't use it because it requires a smart phone. Oh well.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
So you can turn around call me a liar again? People have been playing that game with me for years.
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11044925&cid=55099967
Did you know that most people are rarely accused to being a liar?
I guess creimer took off on a three day weekend. This thread is as exciting as Bucharest... on a Monday night.
REPORT CREIMER EERY DAY
Report him like this
https://imgur.com/a/jSlkt
Report him every day for sockpuppet and trolling
The theater gives a significant portion of ticket revenue to the film distributor, and the theater owner keeps the bulk of the concession revenue.
By sacrificing box office revenue, the theater will pocket greater revenue from concession sales.
As a theater owner why wouldn't I do this?
As a movie distributor I would hate this, if anyone forces this to end it will be the distributors.
Ken
Did was some big product launch? The free Maps API wasn't a good choice.
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We recommend enabling billing to get a higher quota: https://developers.google.com/...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
$5 is still like a weeks worth of spamming Slashdot for an hour or two a day (or at least it was, before your account was banned).