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MoviePass Having Outage Issues Because It Couldn't Pay Its Bills (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the well-that's-embarrassing dept.

Popular movie-ticked subscription service MoviePass experienced an outage on Thursday, still ongoing for some, which the company attributed to "technical issues with our card-based check-in process," on its Twitter feed. But its SEC filing Thursday indicated that the problem was really cash flow. From a report: The filing by its parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics, explained an emergency loan the company had taken out: The $5.0 million cash proceeds received from the Demand Note will be used by the Company to pay the Company's merchant and fulfillment processors. If the Company is unable to make required payments to its merchant and fulfillment processors, the merchant and fulfillment processors may cease processing payments for MoviePass. ("MoviePass"), which would cause a MoviePass service interruption. Such a service interruption occurred on July 26, 2018. Such service interruptions could have a material adverse effect on MoviePass' ability to retain its subscribers.

100 comments

  1. I think I have seen this movie before. by sinij · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think I have seen this movie before.

    1. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Brokeback Mountain?

    2. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      déjà vu

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    3. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by jwhyche · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When you open a all you can eat buffet best to make sure you have enough for everyone to eat.

      -Me Year of the Clown

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    4. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you open a all you can eat buffet best to make sure you have enough for everyone to eat.

      LOL, years ago I went to a Polish restaurant.

      Out front, the sign said "Table d'hote ... all you can eat". So we asked the waitress, "wow, is this all you can eat", and she said "yes". We said "so if we order more we get it for free?" And she said "if you want to order more you will have to pay for it".

      We basically looked at her and said "do you understand what 'all you can eat' means?" She clearly didn't, and we explained what it meant. She went out and changed the sign before we left.

      The running joke then became "this is all you can eat", to mean "this is what you're getting".

      This sounds like Movie Pass also didn't understand what "all you can eat" actually means.

    5. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I have seen this comment before

    6. Re: I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They understood. They were just hoping to recapitalize before they ran out of money. Again.

    7. Re: I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      âoeSuch service interruptions could have a material adverse effect on MoviePass' ability to retain its subscribers.âoe

      You donâ(TM)t say...?

    8. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you didn't understand: You can buy all you can eat.

    9. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All you can eat always reminds me of a story dad tells about one of his friends back in the seventies going to All You Can Eat day at the local chicken place. This dude was huge. I'm talking seven foot something, and probably in the three to three-fifty range pound wise. So, big. He kept asking for more until the manager came out and told him if he wanted to keep eating he needed to buy a second All You Can Eat meal. He told them that's not how it works. They called the cops.

      Cops show up and get the story from both sides. The cops tell the manager, "You're advertising All You Can Eat. If he hasn't left and come back, and he's actually eating everything you bring him, you have to keep serving him."

      One of the cops sat with him and chatted with him to make sure they kept serving him until he was satisfied. He, in turn, bought that cop a meal and they ended up being friends for years after.

      And that was the last All You Can Eat day at that chicken place.

      Having told that story, I don't think MoviePass had a viable business model to begin with. Nobody was going to buy it just to not use it. It was only ever going to sell to people that go to movies constantly. I'm sure they looked at overall audiences and assumed everyone would buy in, even the people that go to two movies a year, just for the "convenience." People aren't quite to that level of stupid yet. Them failing is a certainty. It's just a matter of how long they keep flogging the corpse.

    10. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by slashmydots · · Score: 1

      Did you hear about the guy who sued and won over "all you can eat fish" and they ran out? He won lol.

    11. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by jpaine619 · · Score: 1

      Yeah. I'm not buying your story. It's a good story, but.. no..

      I am unaware of any situation where the cops would force a business owner to serve someone without a court order. They would be opening themselves up to all sorts of liability.

      Had it been me, I'd simply have said (assuming the cop story is true) that the business was closing for the night... Everybody out... Then, I would never have let that guy in again.. Right to Refuse Service and all that jazz.

    12. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I heard he even ate two plastic lobsters.

    13. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This was the seventies, right on the cusp of the world going sue crazy. It's possible someone made it up, as I wasn't there, but that's the story as it's been told among that group of friends ever since.

    14. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by tverbeek · · Score: 1

      If that were true, MoviePass woud not allow you to see it again.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    15. Re:I think I have seen this movie before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And that cop's name? Albert Einstein.Everyone cheered as the owner handed the man a $100% note and they held a parade in his honour.

  2. Typo in summary? by damn_registrars · · Score: 1
    I suspect that

    Popular movie-ticked subscription service

    Should be

    Popular movie-ticket subscription service

    Unless MoviePass has been causing such commotion that the movies themselves are now angry at the service.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Typo in summary? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      from the well-that's-embarrassing dept

    2. Re:Typo in summary? by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 1

      Unless MoviePass has been causing such commotion that the movies themselves are now angry at the service.

      Moves, no. Theaters, yes. I joined the AMC program to see up to three movies per week in any format (i.e., 2D, Real3D, IMAX and Dolby) and other features for $20 per month. I got a postcard for the Cinemark program with one free movie and other features for $10 per month. The theaters have one advantage that MoviePass doesn't have: they make more money from concession sales than ticket sales.

  3. Math is hard by Drunkulus · · Score: 4, Funny

    They charge people 10 bucks a month, then buy those people as many movie tickets as they want. How can this possibly lead to financial problems?

    1. Re:Math is hard by mysidia · · Score: 2

      They charge people 10 bucks a month, then buy those people as many movie tickets as they want.

      "But we'll make it up in volume," right?

      Not exactly... they have added more restrictions and cost for the subscriber a few times, and certain early releases may require the customer pay something. I think their end goal is to be something most people subscribe to and forget to unsubscribe from, but their fees do have to be high enough to coverage the costs of the average person.

      If they want to survive --- MoviePass will probably have to "add more service" to justify upping their rates, and up their rates. Perhaps something like "2 Free Popcorns a month," or.... 50% discount on concessions, Or....
      "Get a digital rental, instead".

    2. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My guess is that the theaters imagined it would mean more revenue in the form of snacks, since ticket sales are already eaten by the cost of getting a copy of the film. Then again, if someone is cheap enough to use the app rather than buy movie tickets, they're also probably not buying snacks/probably sneaking them in.

      I'm also guessing that the data they were mining with the app wasn't valuable enough to recoup the losses.

    3. Re:Math is hard by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Being that especially for movies that have been out for a while. The theater is playing for a small crowd, they will even play the movie if no one is there.

      That is where everyone can make money.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    4. Re:Math is hard by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They charge people 10 bucks a month, then buy those people as many movie tickets as they want. How can this possibly lead to financial problems?

      They're owned by an analytics company. The goal wasn't to make money on the passes, it was to make money on the data. Where you go/what you do before/after a movie, broken down by age ranges, race, income level, location, all of that could potentially be sold to movie chains, restaurants, etc. MoviePass either underestimated how much money they would burn through until the data selling business became sustainable, or overestimated how quickly that would happen. Either way, no big loss. If the tech sector crashes, this will be why: data isn't worth as much (or as useful) as people think it is.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    5. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They overestimated how much that data was worth.

    6. Re:Math is hard by GTRacer · · Score: 1

      Actually, because we're paying maybe half what we were before for movie tickets, we are buying drinks or popcorn more regularly. We still bring our own sometimes but will often add on a concession item.

      --
      Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
    7. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They charge people 10 bucks a month, then buy those people as many movie tickets as they want. How can this possibly lead to financial problems?

      Well, they're losing money on individual transactions, but they're making it up in volume. ;-)

      Honestly, this sounds like the underpants gnomes ..

      Step 1 ... get subscribers for $10/month where you pay more per subscriber than you bring in
      Step 2 ... ???
      Step 3 Profit!!

      In this case, Step 2 is "make huge gobs of money by selling user data" and that's clearly not working. That or they somehow thought the movie studios would cave and give them huge discounts, like that was ever going to happen.

      How anybody failed to see the glaring flaw in the business model is beyond me, and the first time I heard of this I thought "now how the hell is that gonna make you money?".

      Whatever, yet another broken business model in the tech industry, and yet another company failing to live up to the hype.

      My sympathy level for this is pretty much zero.

    8. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My guess is that the theaters imagined it would mean more revenue in the form of snacks, since ticket sales are already eaten by the cost of getting a copy of the film. Then again, if someone is cheap enough to use the app rather than buy movie tickets, they're also probably not buying snacks/probably sneaking them in.

      Yes, but, the biggest problem with Movie Pass is the success of their business depends on people not using it.

      The only way they make money is if a large number of people pay the monthly subscription but then don't go to any movies. Which makes absolutely no sense. You don't sign up for a monthly movie ticket subscription unless you want to see a lot of movies.

      Movie Pass is still trying the Dotcom Bubble 1.0 scam

      Start a stupid business
      Take millions from investors
      Pay yourself a lot of money
      Fail
      Lather, Rinse, Repeat

    9. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      MoviePass also sells advertisements and attempts to track their users.

      I suspect that they were also hoping to work out a discount from the larger movie theaters in exchange for incentives for MoviePass users to buy concessions.

      What really happened is that a lot of MoviePass users -- like my friends and I -- just went to more movies, with no discount, and the movie theaters did not see a significant increase in secondary purchases (e.g., popcorn). Even worse for MoviePass, I got an annual pass for less than $90, which means I pay less than $10 per month for movie tickets that cost at least $12 locally (and $15 most recently at a theater across town).

      Worse, for MoviePass, is that the theaters have figured out how to make this into an actual business model. The theater chains themselves, like AMC, have begun creating their own alternatives to MoviePass (that only work at their chains naturally) because they can actually discount their ticket prices to themselves and eat some of that loss by also incentivizing members to buy things behind the counter. They also limit the number of movies that you can go to per month or week, which seems like a reasonable limitation -- I have never wanted to see more than 2 movies in a single week. I am not sure if they limit the number of times that you can see the same movie, which MoviePass did so that its users would not sell its tickets.

      Of interest, I was blocked from buying two tickets (my wife and I both have a MoviePass membership) on Tuesday because their system had issues. The system kept failing to work, but we both needed to get back to work. So I finally just bought the tickets out of pocket with the intent to get the price refunded by MoviePass. They have so bar been stonewalling on it. I now assume that it was related to this issue, but they have not admitted to anything beyond being sorry.

    10. Re:Math is hard by known_coward_69 · · Score: 1

      Just like Amazon circa 1999, they will make it up on volume

    11. Re:Math is hard by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      My guess is that the theaters imagined it would mean more revenue in the form of snacks, since ticket sales are already eaten by the cost of getting a copy of the film. Then again, if someone is cheap enough to use the app rather than buy movie tickets, they're also probably not buying snacks/probably sneaking them in.

      That's only if MoviePass worked with theatres. Surprisingly, no theatre chain is working with them, and AMC blocked acceptance of MoviePass completely.

      The thing is, MoviePass just has the wrong business model, period. Ticket prices, at least in the first two weeks, generally all go towards the studios. There is no way the theatre can offer MoviePass a break on ticket prices because of it.

      The only time they can takes place on the third week or later, and that's when the theatre starts getting a small cut of the ticket revenue (generally to make up for smaller crowds and lower concession revenue).

      It's generally fine - concessions bought during the first couple of weeks makes up for the loss in ticket revenue which is why theatres don't really mind giving 100% of ticket sales to the movie studios.

      But even if there's an empty seat, as long as it's empty, the theatre pays $0. If that seat gets occupied, even if by someone with a discount ticket, the theatre must pay the full ticket price. So even a flop of a movie that doesn't sell in the second week, the theatre will rather show to an empty theatre (and pay $0) than have people come in.

      This isn't an airline or transport business where an empty seat is a loss of potential revenue. An unsold ticket means an empty seat and it means the theatre does not owe the studio that money.

      For MoviePass to survive, they must block the ability to view a movie in at least the first 14 days (the days the theatres make no money off tickets, and would rather have an empty seat and pay $0 to the studios for it over a discounted ticket where they'd have to make up the difference). They should also realize that concessions are how theatres make money, so offering free small popcorn or something to encourage sales of concessions would be necessary. (A small popcorn would lead to at least a drink sale at full price, and if people are going with friends, generally more concession sales as friends would want to buy stuff as well).

      As for data mining, I'm sure the theatres have good ideas what their patrons do. "Dinner and a movie" is a common phrase for an activity, which is why they often have partners with restaurants. And after a movie is over, if it's a late showing, generally speaking most patrons are either going to go home, or to a bar. But in general, I don't think it's too valuable because too many people are doing too many different things.

    12. Re:Math is hard by Jaime2 · · Score: 1

      Nope. The theaters are against MoviePass and are refusing to enter into any types of arrangements. That's why MoviePass subscribers can't get reserved seats at most theaters. At first the theaters said it was because the whole concept of MoviePass was repugnant to them and devalued the service they provide. Now that both Regal and AMC have their own competing service, it's obvious that the theaters really don't want to help the competition. Either way, MoviePass isn't getting any special treatment and seems to be paying retail price for tickets. So, there is no losses to recoup from the theater's perspective and from MoviePass's perspective, they don't get a dime of the concession stand income.

    13. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you defining cheap as "only wants to pay around $10 per month for movie tickets versus $12 per movie ticket"?

      Because to not take advantage of that kind of a discount is simply dumb. The risk at this point, for anyone that didn't already jump on the band wagon, is that you may actually not get your money's worth. In my case, I bought an annual membership for MoviePass from Cost Co last fall for $90, which translates to $7.50 per month. At this rate, I may miss out on a month or two of service, but I will have easily saved more than $90 in movie ticket prices. Where I live, movie tickets are a minimum of $12 per ticket and up to $15 per ticket. The ladder means I justify paying for two months worth of service with every ticket purchased. Six to nine movie tickets justifies the entire cost.

      Interestingly, I used to love seeing movies at the theater. But in the last few years the cost has become too much to justify it (I can wait rather than spending $30 to see a movie with my wife and I). With MoviePass, I have begun seeing a lot more movies that I never would have considered seeing in theaters without it. Without it, the movie theaters won't be getting the price of those tickets covered, which means they will have less people coming to the theater to cover the cost of purchasing (leasing? not actually sure what they call it) the rights to show the movies. If my local chain offers something similar, even if it's a little more expensive to be realistic, I would happily drop MoviePass and support it (I know that AMC has a similar thing at a similar cost, but the closest AMC theater is at least 30 minutes away from me with normal traffic). I do not expect MoviePass to exist when my annual membership expires.

    14. Re:Math is hard by Straif · · Score: 1

      From my understanding MoviePass isn't actually associated with the theaters themselves so they get no share in the concession sales. They wanted to be the defacto theater subscription service but the various chains figured they could skip the middle man and just offer their own services. The theaters have the advantage that they do make money on concessions so just getting a person in the door is a win for them.

      MoviePass wanted to be the Netflix of movie tickets but they were looking at the streaming market when Netflix launched not the market as it stands today. Back then Netflix was a lone wolf pushing the boundaries of subscription based services so were able to build a pretty good subscriber base and use that strength to get some good deals with distributors as well as build up their own in house production systems. Today everyone and their dog has a streaming service and it would be much harder for a new Netflix to launch. Amazon Prime is the closest but that's only because they weren't really reliant on profits to survive in the short term.

      Essentially MoviePass went with the "if you build it, they will come" business strategy but the problem is anyone else can also build it and a lot of theater chains are doing just that. They should have pushed harder on contracting with the various chains to become their in house movie service provider instead of just assuming they would hop on board later.

      --
      Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
    15. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The goal wasn't to make money on the passes, it was to make money on the data

      Maybe when the analytics company became a majority owner in August 2017, but the company existed for six years before that. More to the point, you're selecting the wrong error- they underestimated the intransigence of the theater chains in working with them, and how easy it would be to co-opt the model.

      Have you seen Cinemark's membership thing? Sure, it's not 'see a zillion movies for $10' but it is 'pay us for a great deal, and you don't lose anything if you don't see a movie this month.'

    16. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > but the various chains figured they could skip the middle man and just offer their own services.

      Except I won't buy an individual theatres service because I want choice of theatres....

    17. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a lot of theater chains are doing just that

      You're entirely correct in my view. One of the critical differences is that the theater chains are offering very straightforward deals- ones where you don't have to wonder whether you're coming in at the right price, whether the deal will change next month, whether the theater will still be in business, etc.

      Mine said 'buy a $9 ticket from us each month for $9, but don't worry, those tickets won't expire. Also you'll pay no online ticket fees on every ticket, which you'll like because now our super-nice theaters have reserved seating. And hey, why not a significant discount on concessions, too?' All they had to do was show me a single ad during their pre-show advertising and I signed up on my phone right then. Because I didn't have to wonder, "what's the catch?" like I did with MoviePass.

    18. Re: Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      weâ(TM)re sorry we screwed you over.

    19. Re:Math is hard by sconeu · · Score: 1

      AMC blocked acceptance of MoviePass completely

      My MP app currently shows two AMCs on its list.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    20. Re:Math is hard by Schnapple · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree that part of their plan was tracking their users, especially since the CEO bragged about it, but then they had to shut down that part of it when people complained, later calling it a glitch or something.

      The other part of it, and I think this is the real key, is that MoviePass got tired of being a small fish in a nonexistent pond and decided to go huge in the hopes of being bought by someone else and having it be their problem. YouTube, for example, was hemorrhaging money because their bandwidth costs were doubling every single month. And then Google bought them and that became Google's problem (which wasn't a problem because Google has no problem getting the bandwidth it wants). I think MoviePass was hoping someone would buy them, either for the data part or to shut them down, and either way the founders cash out and leave.

      I do have to say that the thing I despised about MoviePass was that anyone with half a brain could see either they were up to something or they were going to go out of business fast. This would be like paying a $20/month fee and getting a card that will pay for all the gas your car ever needs. Something doesn't add up here. But whenever you'd tell anyone they'd treat you like you were some asshole who wanted to ruin everything. And reading all these people who experienced surge pricing or who couldn't get their app or card to work or who had to photograph ticket stubs like they were submitting some corporate expense report... I'm glad I never signed up or bothered with it. They're going to be dead by the end of the week at this rate.

      --

      Schnapple

    21. Re:Math is hard by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      There's one huge problem with your theory: theaters already offer big discounts for particular days of the week. I can see a movie that's been out less than 2 weeks on a Tuesday for $5, if I see the same movie on a Saturday it's $12.75. If they can give people a 60% price cut because it's Tuesday, they could clearly give MoviePass a 60% price cut for similar draw reasons. If they're paying the studios $12.75 for the ticket I pay $5 for on a Tuesday, I would be rather shocked by that and I pity them their loss since I never buy concessions... but it's apparently working for the theaters somehow so they could do the same thing for MoviePass if it works for them.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    22. Re:Math is hard by maestroX · · Score: 1

      They charge people 10 bucks a month, then buy those people as many movie tickets as they want. How can this possibly lead to financial problems?

      And which idiot funds the kind of business that god forbid doesn't want to have too many customers...

    23. Re: Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The theaters pay a percentage of the box office revenues to the distributor, not a fixed amount. (Anything else would be anti-competitive. Key cases in US law from the '30's deal with EXACTLY this issue.)

      So theaters could absolutely offer cheaper tickets to MoviePass, it's that they choose not to. Prime reasons would be 1) to maintain inelastic pricing and 2) to get into a similar business themselves.

    24. Re:Math is hard by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      You likely have two chains of theaters in your town or city. Maybe a half dead 'artsy fartsy/midnight movie' surviving. Maybe a drive in, for nostalgia.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    25. Re:Math is hard by Dan+East · · Score: 1

      This would be like paying a $20/month fee and getting a card that will pay for all the gas your car ever needs.

      For most people, gas for their car is a necessity. Going to the movies is not. Besides selling analytic data, I believe they hoped to make money like Netflix did back before they had streaming. I paid for Netflix monthly, and after I while I just couldn't be bothered to keep track of what DVDs I had and what was in my queue and keep circulating them fast enough. So I only ended up, on average over many months, viewing a few movies a month. It would have been cheaper for me to rent them locally.

      If everyone had MoviePass, like it was required car insurance or something, then it would pan out. We could all pay $10 a month and watch movies as often as we wanted. Because most of the public really doesn't have time to watch more than a couple movies a month anyway.

      However, what has happened is those people that really do watch a lot of movies are jumping all over this, and not the average person. The average American watches 5 movies a year at the theater. That would work out to $24 a movie if a person was paying $10 a month for Movie Pass, but those people using Movie Pass are watching way more than 5 movies a year - probably at least 5 movies a month.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    26. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But amazon wasn't losing money on the sales in 1999, they were just not profitable due to spending all they made and more on building out infrastructure. They could've the capital investment at any time and been profitable.

    27. Re:Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!

    28. Re:Math is hard by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      It wasn't just to prevent people selling the tickets. I heard reports that some people were using MoviePass to buy tickets for movies they had no intention of watching just to get the loyalty points from the theater. If it was an urban theater near your place of work that was rather painless to do.

    29. Re:Math is hard by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      There are a few theater chains that MoviePass is working with directly, mostly the ones with e-ticketing options. Landmark Theatres is one. But they don't have any special deals with the big players like AMC, Regal, and Cinemark.

    30. Re:Math is hard by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      Here in Boston we have two of the big mainstream theater chains (AMC and Regal) plus a new small one (Showplace Icon). Across the river in Cambridge there is an art house chain (Landmark), an independent art house (Brattle), and two small local chains (Frame One Theatres and Apple Cinemas). Neighboring Brookline has another independent art house (Coolidge Corner). The suburbs of Boston have yet another medium-sized chain (National Entertainment, dba Showcase and Cinema De Lux), two IMAX theaters run by the Jordan's Furniture chain (!), and additional AMC locations and independent art houses.

      Lots of choices here. That substantially decreases the appeal of single chain offerings like AMC A-List.

    31. Re:Math is hard by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      I've been to Boston. Not all of that is driveable (for a movie) from any one place.

      Sure, the next 'Road Warrior' movie, you drive all the way across town. As a warmup, maybe an inspired drive home.

      How many major releases aren't going through _both_ the major chains?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    32. Re: Math is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There aren't enough good movies worth seeing to make this cost effective.

    33. Re:Math is hard by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      Just about all the major releases show up at all the chains. But the more limited releases don't. Buying into a one-chain pass means there are movies you won't get to see without spending extra. And in some cases you might not get to see the major film you want in your desired format. For example, back when the Hobbit movies were coming out, the first one was only in HFR 3D at AMC and the other two were only in HFR 3D at Regal. (Yes, I saw all three that way. I know a lot of people hated HFR but I liked it. Also, HFR and 3D are synergistic; HFR makes 3D work better.)

  4. Facebook profits... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Funny

    Facebook earnings miss, MoviePass failing, Twitter missing targets, looks like the tech chickens are flying home to roost. It's about time the ad-targeting, location-tracking, "tech" bubble goes "phut." Party like it's 2001?

    1. Re:Facebook profits... by Discgolferusa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Makes me long for the good old days of Pets.com..... Man I miss that sock puppet!

    2. Re:Facebook profits... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My thoughts exactly... too much stupid VC money being thrown around. Also, too many young'ns that don't remember the last used Aeron fire sale.

    3. Re:Facebook profits... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I miss that sock puppet too, the one we have in the white house is annoying as hell!

    4. Re:Facebook profits... by Hentai007 · · Score: 1

      Hey... Where's my Aeron chair as severance?! my 2001 model finally gave out.

    5. Re:Facebook profits... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol its cute you think targeted tracking is going away, never ever ever gonna happen

    6. Re:Facebook profits... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Chewy.com, sure takes you back. Selling bags of dry dog food over the net again.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    7. Re:Facebook profits... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Probably won't, but the prospect people losing their shirts by investing in targeted spying firms == massive Schadenfreude. If it can't be eliminated, I can't be upset about Mr. Market punishing the investors.

  5. OK two loose money on each customer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    since you can make it up in popcorn$$$. Wha? No selling popcorn!? Never mind. Trump going down. And the rest. When? SOON!

  6. Slashdot ran out of Inc by bestweasel · · Score: 1

    Cnet.com

    may cease processing payments for MoviePass, Inc. ("MoviePass"), which would cause a MoviePass service interruption.

    Slashdot

    may cease processing payments for MoviePass. ("MoviePass"), which would cause a MoviePass service interruption.

  7. WHICH merchant service provider? by ScentCone · · Score: 2

    Which foolish merchant service provider isn't taking their cut at the time they run the charge and/or prior to remitting the cash to the retailer? How can Movie Pass have to pay them after running transactions? Or maybe they struck some sort of deal that avoids a huge number of small transaction fees, replacing that with one big monthly bill for services. But that would be very unusual, especially when dealing with a young, financially questionable business model. Card processors take their cut up front for a reason - because otherwise they'd get burned all the time.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:WHICH merchant service provider? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The merchant service for processing incoming payments from subscribers isn't necessarily the same as the service processing outgoing payments. It seems far more likely that the latter is the one MovePass owes.

    2. Re:WHICH merchant service provider? by aix+tom · · Score: 1

      I hear it's "PayPass", an aspiring new company which offers subscription bases payment processing based on the numbers of your customers and per month, not based on individual transactions. It will either be the Next Big Thing (TM) or a complete and utter failure.

  8. Stock price says it all by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

    According to a CNN article about this, if MoviePass hadn't done a reverse stock split (ie, merged stock shares), it's current value would be roughly 1.5 cents (at the time that article was published, the share was at $3.50, it's now dropped to $2.50). MoviePass is a penny stock.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    1. Re:Stock price says it all by magarity · · Score: 2

      MoviePass is a penny stock.

      Only if you want to lose your pennies.

    2. Re:Stock price says it all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That'd be ~0.015 cents. It was around 8 cents going into the reverse split.

    3. Re:Stock price says it all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That'd be ~0.015 cents. It was around 8 cents going into the reverse split.

      Disregard, math is hard.

    4. Re:Stock price says it all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's bitztream the custom EpiPen-hating, autism-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!

  9. Wow by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Glad I was sitting down before I saw this. The shock is overwhelming - news like this coming completely out of the blue.

    If MoviePass can fail... how can I have confidence in *anything*?

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is good for bitcoin, of course.

    2. Re:Wow by null+etc. · · Score: 2

      how can I have confidence in *anything*?

      Well, sir, your post ID ends with 20000, making you unique to the degree of one in ten thousand. I guess there's that.

  10. Do I still have time to buy? by drew_kime · · Score: 1

    Every time I see a story about them I tell myself, "Hey, self, you've got to remember to sign up for this! It sounds like a great deal." Looks like this may be my last chance to sign up.

    --
    Nope, no sig
  11. 5 million? by sqorbit · · Score: 2

    According to sources from other articles MoviePass loses (or could lose) an estimated 21-45 million per month. The range seems to vary depending on source, but even at the low end that's a lot of money bleeding out of that company. What is 5 Million going to do that to stop that amount of bleeding? Why would a fund lend that amount to a company they know will blow through it in a matter of days with no real plan for income? MoviePass will go down as just another disaster.

    --
    Sent from my TARDIS
  12. Not a long term loan by uncqual · · Score: 4, Informative

    Per Bloomberg, the the terms of the loan are pretty aggressive.

    The lender can demand more than $3M be repaid on August 1 and the remainder on August 5. Also, MoviePass has a planned stock sale and proceeds from that must be used to repay the loan. If MoviePass is 48 hours late in paying, the debt will increase to 130%. If they pay late, they will pay a 15% annualized late fee as well.

    --
    Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    1. Re:Not a long term loan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yikes! Did they go to a payday loan store?

    2. Re:Not a long term loan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wonder how they're gonna pull that off since they're losing money hand over fist in any given month. Are they assuming it's all gonna turn around in a few days? This seems like the last dying gasp to make sure their executives get a nice severance before declaring bankruptcy and closing up shop.

    3. Re:Not a long term loan by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Just moviepass giving the finger to their other creditors.

      At this point, they're likely trying to payoff things like back payroll taxes. Where if they don't, they personally go to jail for theft, having withheld the taxes from employee checks.

      The bigger the number this last creditor builds up, the higher % of the liquidated assets it gets...but I doubt there is anywhere near 3 million in value there. What are they going to do? Go for one more month of subscriptions, and hope there are enough lazy people that don't notice?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  13. stupid melinnallealeas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yea, I spelled that wrong.
    But looking @ it from a different perspective..
    They both have the same value.. (0)
    Movie Pass if f*cked. Whats even worse, who's going to sanction the company for deceptive practices, false advertising, and fraudlent activities?
    just like their melinnalleal counter parts, both Deemed Worthless to both Society and the good of all man and women.

    Suck on that Msmash, Pristine example of what worthless see's every morning when it looks into a mirror..

  14. Just trying to recoup my costs by Arkham · · Score: 1
    I bought in to a yearly subscription MoviePass in March for $8/month ($100 total). I figure I needed to see 9 movies to break even. So far I've seen 15 movies. A lot of them weren't stuff I would have seen otherwise, but still enjoyed (Equalizer 2 was good, for example).

    I don't imagine they'll be around much longer. My wife wants to go see Mission Impossible this weekend, but as of now the app is reporting "a problem with our payment processing" and recommends e-tickets instead (no theaters I go to have that though).

    --
    - Vincit qui patitur.
  15. Unless your Tesla you won't survive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think if you can't pay your bills your not making any money. So your days are probably numbered. Unless your Tesla then your doing just fine.

  16. Pivot! by edi_guy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ok team, new plan. All you can watch television for one monthly rate.

  17. You been hear for 4 hours YOU GO NOW! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    You been hear for 4 hours YOU GO NOW!

    1. Re:You been hear for 4 hours YOU GO NOW! by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 1

      I really miss John. I saw him live before he croaked. Too bad, he was one of the greats.

      --
      -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
    2. Re:You been hear for 4 hours YOU GO NOW! by NormalVisual · · Score: 1

      I hadn't gotten to see John live, and I'm very sorry I missed him. I can console myself by having gotten to see Sam Kinison live a few weeks before his passing though, I suppose.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
    3. Re:You been hear for 4 hours YOU GO NOW! by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      You got to see Sam Kinison live? Excellent. Sam, John, and George, we really could use your comedy now.

      Toast!

      I only have Mnt Dew but it will do.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    4. Re:You been hear for 4 hours YOU GO NOW! by NormalVisual · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Sam was great live. He came out on stage, dropped the mike, and screamed, "HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU, NORFOLK?!!!!". Could hear him clearly even in the nosebleed seats over all the applause.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
  18. The post above yours answers that by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > Why would a fund lend that amount to a company they know will blow through it in a matter of days with no real plan for income?

    One would have to be pretty stupid to lend money to Moviepass, unless ...

    https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...

  19. join the real world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Umm, most of them tied to a bank or large business. Receiving $9.35 for a $10 transaction is a pain in the butt when doing real accounting. 2000 entries for 1000 transactions your way or 1001 entries paying separately...which should a business pick?!?

    I HATE the Square-D transactions from the fair each year :/

  20. AMC Plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AMC has offered me a plan, I might have it a bit wrong, but it is like $20 a month for 3 movies per week. I believe no restrictions on the 3 (Other than must be an AMC theater).

    So not as good of a deal as MP, but still reasonable for movie lovers and set up better to prevent failure.

  21. I can't unsubscribe by Layth · · Score: 2

    The unsubscribe button literally does nothing in the app.
    Online it says there's a bug and to use the chat service...

    If you ask the chat service to unsubscribe it says "MoviePass is currently aware of an issue affecting check-ins to non-eticketing theaters. Our team is working hard to identify the issue and find a solution." and then i get a message stating that the conversation is closed.

    Now i've been charged for another month because I can't cancel the subscription.
    Looks like I'll have to go to the bank to cut them off o_0

    p.s. Back in the day after I signed up for movie pass they never sent me a card and I had to go to the better business bureau just to get a response from them and a card mailed out.

  22. no. peak pricing is outta control by Layth · · Score: 1

    $6 surcharge every movie, any time of day

  23. suspect stock manipulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Probably people trying to short HMNY to 0 based on all the negative speculative coverage.

  24. So by BitztreamNotARealNam · · Score: 1, Troll

    How's life in the hypocrite lane?