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.

Comments

Stupid

[AdamStarks]

"We lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume"

Re:Stupid

[Joce640k]

You joke but it's basically true in the movie theater business.

Movie theaters already make basically zero money on the tickets because they have to pay the movie distributors a fortune every time they show a movie in their theater. Theaters make all their money on the popcorn and drinks (which is why they're so expensive - that's what's paying for the installation and the wages of the people who work there).

It basically costs theaters nothing to fill up the empty seats with MoviePass subscribers, they might even sell more drinks/popcorn, which is good.

What will hurt them is theaters being full of MoviePass customers on Friday/Saturday nights. This new pricing addresses that and makes sense.

Just Stop

[thomas.galvin]

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.

Re:Just Stop

[jwhyche]

To me a successful business model would be making movies that people want to see in the theater.

Re:Just Stop

[Kjella]

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.

Re:How about nope ?

[MrKaos]

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.

There is little doubt, from your post that society is collapsing and that this is the end of the world.

Finally a reason to buy popcorn.

Re:errr

[omnichad]

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.

Re:How about nope ?

[mabu]

7) Sit through 30 minutes of fucking advertisements before the movie starts.

Fuck. That.

My New Business Plan

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

My new plan is not to use MoviePass. It's basically the same as the old plan, where I also didn't use MoviePass.