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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.
"We lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume"
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.
The cinemas already got that market cornered. I mean imagine someone said they'd create a TaxiPass, people pay us for a subscription to taxis and we pay the actual taxi bills. But because people are stupid they'll spend more money our way, so we can skim a profit and still pay for the taxis. And then it turns out people who only take a taxi ride once or twice a month pay for it directly, while those who take dozens of rides get a pass and you lose a ton of money. And nobody is surprised, except for some reason those who invested in MoviePass. If they'd put that business model in front of me I'd run screaming the other way.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That's not what's scarce. It's VC funding that's scarce. The theater being too full to sell tickets is good news for MoviePass because they don't have to sell any more tickets.
7) Sit through 30 minutes of fucking advertisements before the movie starts.
Fuck. That.