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MoviePass' New Business Plan Is To Charge You Whatever It Wants (qz.com)
MoviePass is rolling out peak pricing, its own version of surge pricing that will charge customers more to see popular movies during what the company considers "high demand" times. Quartz reports: MoviePass is a subscription movie ticket service that typically costs $9.95 a month to see up to one movie in U.S. theaters per day. The company has been hemorrhaging cash to subsidize these monthly subscriptions, which can cost less than a single movie ticket in some U.S. cities. The company is looking to raise another $1.2 billion by selling stock and debt. But if MoviePass wants to survive, it also needs to start losing less money on its subscribers, and fast.
That's where peak pricing comes in. "Peak Pricing goes into effect when there's high demand for a movie or showtime," MoviePass wrote in its email. "You may be asked to pay a small additional fee depending on the level of demand." Movies currently experiencing peak pricing will be marked with a red circle containing a white lightening bolt; movies growing in demand that "could enter Peak Pricing soon" will get a gray version of the icon. MoviePass doesn't say how much the "small additional fee" will be, but we can expect it to be $2 or more. In the example MoviePass emailed to users today, the extra fee is $3.43. "Note: the actual Peak Pricing surcharge will vary based on showtime and movie title," the email adds.
Imagine not understanding artificial scarcity was visible to the customer.
cuz they're done.
with the major theater chains now rolling out their own 'subscription' plans, a third party doing the same thing simply cannot survive.
Please stop, or at least display these in the ad color so we can ignore them more easily.
"We lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume"
MoviePass changes it's business model faster than new the Javascript community mints new frameworks. It's exhausting. Last Tuesday it was $9.95 a month and you can see three movies every full moon plus you get SoundCloud for free on weekends and next week it'll be $15 a month and twice a week someone will break into your home, tie you to your couch, and force you to watch John Travolta's latest space opera, and they will also bill you for a potion of the food in your fridge.
I get whiplash trying to keep up with their constant quest to find a profitable business model, and somehow it still hasn't occurred to them that "bring in more money than you spend" is the only viable solution.
Thomas Galvin
Making people pay more for an entertainment service they have to fit in around work and other daily tasks might not make people want to pay more.
They can stay home and rent an older movie.
Wait some time and watch the new movie at a lower set price on some online service.
People don't have to see a new movie like with other peak pricing services.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
What are the chances that there will be a class action lawsuit shortly? For those that prepaid for the year, and no essentially locked in, isn't this a bait and switch?
Here's what they're not getting:
The " theater experience " is currently so poor, you could give me the tickets for FREE and I still won't go to the theater to see the movie.
I will wait for it to come out on Pay Per View, Blu-Ray or $random_streaming_service so I don't have to:
1) Wonder if my vehicle is getting broken into out in the theater parking lot while I see the show
2) Show up an hour early if I want any chance of a decent seat
3) Deal with folks on phones, folks who want to talk the whole time or heathen children running wild
4) The fact that management refuses to do anything about #3 even when it's brought to their attention
5) Put up with a poorly maintained sound system that's turned up a few dB past the threshold of pain
6) Worry about sticking to the floor where the soda was spilled a few days ago
- ex customer
Service canceled, further drama avoided.
Once you got 'em hooked, you can play 'em like a marlin !!
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
My new plan is not to use MoviePass. It's basically the same as the old plan, where I also didn't use MoviePass.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
On-demand pricing surges are just a corporation's way of saying, "Fuck you, you broke-ass peasants!"
The idea of being made to pay more when you either need or want something and not at any other time is one of the "fuck you!" things I can think of. Like the soft drink machines that bump up their prices automatically when it gets hot out.
This financial discrimination in favor of the highest bidder for commodity goods and services that aren't even remotely scarce pisses me off at a visceral level.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
But if MoviePass wants to survive, it also needs to start losing less money on its subscribers, and fast.
Seems like losing money on its subscribers was its business plan. Either that, or they didn't think things through.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For me, It has nothing to do with "theater experience". Going to a movie theater and watching a movie in a dark crowded room is going out and doing something. Watching a movie on your TV is not that. People will always want to "go out and do something".
Personally, I just don't want to get stuck in a place for 2 to 3 hours.
When I watch movies at home I pause it all the time. And may take a week or so to even watch the entire thing, and may fall asleep not remembering if I watched the entire movie or not. And may dream up the end of the movie or have a dream of me watching the end of the movie. I don't even care if it's a redbox DVD that I had out so long I already bought it. I just want to watch it (or not) stress free.
Meanwhile, movies are getting longer and "free time" is getting shorter...
Calling it now. Moviepass will shutter by mid-2019. They will not get the round of funding they need. AMC will expand their new offering to fill that void, further consolidating the US theater market by offering extra incentives to attend their movies, like discounts on concession, points towards better theaters (XD, IMAX, etc) and other perks.
I even googled it, and it still doesn't make sense.
The parallels to Netflix don't work. The money that they're spending is used on an asset - content that can be used again and again. Moviepass is spending its money on tickets. That gets burned as soon as it's used once.
Not that many people are going to substantially increase their spending to get the pass. They apparently pay the cinemas full price for tickets and I can't see how that will change. Targeted marketing might help a little, but studios aren't going to pay people to watch their movies.
It works out for the MoviePass holders. Even at the cost of spam increase, they do well. But investors are throwing money at this. I don't get it! How do they think they'll make a profit?
What's a movie theater?
are there even any town withou n1ggers left in America? Obama saw to it that there are not.
Good job OP, you've described every company
We want the women.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
On the one hand, you have people who will bend over and accept almost anything that is against their interests. On the other hand, you people who will ripped off: "I already paid for this!"
I'm guessing the sheep outnumber the fighters by a wide margin.
MoviePass just need to get a profit from every customer. How could MoviePass get a profit from every customer? Sell your customers Plain movie DVDs, Exclusive Live Events, Movie Memorabilia, Access to Test screenings, Participation in Live Conferences with Cast and Crew from Old and New Movies, Books, Soundtrack Music, etc... The BIG Question is: Does MoviePass wants to get a profit from every customer?