[emodendroket]

> When the company changed those rules to limit subscribers so they could only see a given movie once, no matter how long it runs in theaters, a support ticket stated, “we hope this will encourage you to see new movies and enjoy something different!” It turns out that was a blatant effort to cut costs, with today’s filing explaining that the move “enabled us to reduce our cash deficit during the first week of May 2018 by more than 35 [percent].”

> There are a lot of ways to read that percentage, and in MoviePass’ defense, the company has also said that the goal was to prevent people from using MoviePass to buy tickets for friends who aren’t subscribers. But either way, a savings of more than a third represents a radical shift. Couple that with the fact that the most popular movie the first week of May was Avengers: Infinity War, whose astounding box-office performance is driven by repeat visits, and the connection seems clearer — MoviePass is openly trying to save money by limiting features its customers actively use. It isn’t a “test” or an “experiment,” as the company has claimed in the past; it’s intentionally making the subscriptions people have already paid for less useful because its business model is unsustainable.

Getting rid of repeats saving 35% seems to point to some pretty widespread abuse. Who are these people seeing the same movie multiple times during its initial theater run?

[LeifCarrotson]

I've seen 3 movies in theaters in the past year - Star Wars, Greatest Showman, and Avengers.

My wife, a Moviepass subscriber, has been to the movies some 60 times since December. She typically goes 30-40 times a year, it's one of her and her friends' favorite hobbies. You might go to coffee or the bar, I might go to the park or the gym, she and her friends love going to the movies. It's just a thing to do for a couple hours on a weeknight.

There was no 'abuse' in the sense of sharing her pass among friends, or buying tickets and not going to the movie. She does like a frozen coke sith her movie, and she buys the $35 free refill popcorn bucket 3 times a year, so there was quite a bit of profit for the theater, but she was not profitable to Moviepass and they might feel that normal use for her was abuse.

She would not be profitable unless (a) Moviepass can negotiate <50-cent tickets with the theater with kickbacks for concessions, or (b) she convinced enough people close to her (like me) to buy a moviepass and buy fewer tickets than the subscription costs.

The problem is, it's super easy to do the math on whether or not you would have spent more on tickets than moviepass.

[adamc]

> The problem is, it's super easy to do the math on whether or not you would have spent more on tickets than moviepass.

This is the crux of the problem, I think. People who see one movie a month are not going to buy it. So they need to be profitable for high-usage customers. Unless they are getting incredible discounts... just not going to work.

For it to make sense, there need to be some restrictions -- e.g., only Sunday through Thursday nights (times when fewer people go to the movies... whatever they might be). But then a lot of people like me, who are too busy to go at that time, will skip it.

If you want me to over-pay for an option, it needs to have some intangible value. For example, if buying a moviepass gave me X times a month that someone else could come "free"... I might value that above market cost, because I could tell others "don't sweat it, it's free" and get friends to come along without feeling I'm pressuring them to spend a lot of money.

[ghaff]

It’s a good point. Also, with many subscriptions, the choice is between buying a subscription or doing without. You may or may not get value from the subscription but there’s no a la cartel alternative to compare against.

This seems much closer to simply comparing dollar costs of two different purchase alternatives.

[emodendroket]

When I referred to abuse what I meant to say is that the number of repeats suggests that a great many ticket purchases are not for the subscriber.

[compsciphd]

There are a handful of movies that are not surprises, but just fun to watch.

Avengers, TLJ, Black Panther, Greatest Showman are all movies that someone can enjoy watching more than once.

[emodendroket]

There are many movies I've watching twice or even many times, but I'll usually give it some time.

[teraflop]

According to the filing, this change reduced the cash deficit by 35%. That's very different from saying that it reduced overall expenses, or the number of tickets purchased, by 35%.

It's not possible to draw conclusions about how many people were "abusing" the service without a lot more information.

[emodendroket]

You are right. Still, unless there was widespread purchasing of tickets for non subscribers going on, I would expect the effect of that change to be a blip, not a substantial drop in their cash deficit.

[thedufer]

Unless you know more than us about their deficit, we can't really say how big this was. If they were spending 101% of revenues, for example, 35% off their deficit _is_ a blip.

[emodendroket]

I'm just going by this article, but it also suggests their financial situation is so dicey they are in danger of shutting down soon, so that seems unlikely.

[slg]

Since MoviePass buys it tickets at retail costs, a single heavy user is exceptionally costly. Imagine someone who purchases a $15 ticket 25 times a month for a total of $375. MoviePass would need something like 40 users paying $10 a month who barely use the service in order to offset that single user. It therefore isn't surprising that MoviePass is making changes to curtail those heavy users. Even if only something like 1% of users abuse the system by sharing accounts or reselling tickets, that could be enough to sink the entire company.

[adamc]

Buying its tickets at retail cost is crazy...

[stefan_]

Their plan is to make it up in volume, clearly.

[giobox]

It’s either this, or grow big enough fast enough before the cash runs out that they have a strong bargaining position with big cinema chains to cut deals for cheaper tickets, perhaps also using the carrot of some kind of concession promotion to encourage subscribers to buy popcorn etc.

If this model works, it isn’t exactly hard for a large chain like AMC to do in house at all, I really don’t see the incentive to get into bed with MoviePass. Some European cinema chains already do this, like Cineworld in the UK.

[IncRnd]

It's all about Failing Fast and Failing Often in today's world of silly business sayings.

[pjc50]

Or as we used to say, anyone can sell a dollar for ninety cents.

[IncRnd]

You win! That's definitely a fast fail.

[pjc50]

The phrase is not my invention :) it or something like it was about during the first dotcom boom, said about companies like webvan and pets.com

[Sangermaine]

>Who are these people seeing the same movie multiple times during its initial theater run?

You must be very unfamiliar with modern movie audiences, especially comic book movie fans. Plenty of people see movies they're fans of multiple times after release.

It appears from comments below that you personally don't like watching the same movie over again. Other people, however, do. Your personal bias is skewing your ability to understand the situation.

What's actually going on is that the service customers have paid for is being reduced while the price hasn't changed, screwing the customers.

[hootiehoo]

When they announced the policy change last week, I saw some tweets along the lines of: "I love contributing 15$ to Black Panther's global box office total every time I want to use the slightly nicer bathroom at the mall."

[untog]

I do know people who go to see the latest movies (particularly Marvel ones, Star Wars, etc.) more than once. I imagine MoviePass would only encourage that behavior. (but I agree that abuse probably has something to do with it as well)

[coss]

I really don't see how theaters haven't caught on and started a subscription service of their own. Just an obvious way to get people to the theater (multiple times) and by snacks.

[FroshKiller]

They have. I'm a member of the Cinemark Movie Club.

[jsgo]

because the subscription service that would serve as the blueprint seems to be on a trajectory towards bankruptcy?

Unless you can get the vendors who sell theaters the digital film to reduce their prices for new releases, there is still an intrinsic cost to the movie itself that isn't going to be defeated by a small increase in snack purchases. Actually, I hear this being a big selling point (increased snack sales), but of the 5 people I know who use MoviePass, 4 of them sneak snacks in via purses. Anecdotal as it may be, I don't trust this reasoning to be a theater's savior either.

[dingaling]

Odeon chain in the UK have a subscription with unlimited(ish) viewing

http://mobi.odeon.co.uk/limitless/

I don't go to the cinema often enough to make it worthwhile but it is popular with my peers.

[cletus]

"Abuse" is a strong word and the quote you've given addresses this when it says:

> ... whose astounding box-office performance is driven by repeat visits

I think you underestimate how often people will see the same movie.

Getting tickets for your friends for MoviePass is a whole separate issue (and clearly abuse). But is seeing the same movie more than once "abuse"? That's more debatable. But repeat viewings clearly happen.

[SilasX]

"Abuse" is a loaded word, but I can understand what they mean.

A lot of services depend on individual usage staying in certain bounds, and which would rarely be exceeded by the typical, intended usage; but where the provider doesn't want to commit to a hard cap (cough ISPs, Github). These services would collapse if everyone started re-selling the good, because it vastly changes the use profile. The term "abuse" is understandable (if not always warranted).

But you're right: one individual seeing the movie more than once is not inherently "abusive", even in that sense. But reselling is, for sure: the typical user is not going to see a movie every day, and the MoviePass model is based on such a "gentlemen's agreement", where people won't go out of their way to use every day's ticket (except the rare oddball user).

As a way to root out actual abuse, they have to use some crude heuristics, and one of them is repeat movie viewings. Yes, some honest non-resellers see movies more than once, but the most common case is this kind of reselling.

[emodendroket]

If more than one-third of their ticket purchases are repeat viewings I find it really hard to believe anywhere near half of those are genuine, rather than tickets purchased for someone else. Anyway, it seems like a completely reasonable restriction to not allow someone to see the same movie more than once.

[SatvikBeri]

There's an important selection effect: these are people who bought MoviePass, which means they expected to watch more than one movie a month. That means people who do rewatch movies (like me, or my wife) are going to be wildly over-represented. And people are much more like to re-watch when the marginal cost is ~$0 instead of ~$20

[cletus]

Are you approaching this from the point of view that you don't believe that percentage of movie ticket sales are repeat viewings? I'd have a hard time believing that too.

Thing is, MoviePass subscribers aren't representative of the average movie-goer. It attracts those who see a lot of movies (repeat or not). It's also only a small percentage of viewers.

[salvar]

It's not one-third of their ticket purchases. Limiting the viewings to one per movie reduced the cash deficit by 35%. These are not the same at all.

[jiveturkey]

Agreed, it is completely reasonable. I would find it very hard to believe anyone would think otherwise.

The problem is the corporate doublespeak (lies) in the the way they presented the change. It speaks volumes about the way the company is managed. I'd be looking elsewhere if I worked there. Especially considering that there is absolutely no reason to spin the change. Just call it what it is.

[superfrank]

> Who are these people seeing the same movie multiple times during its initial theater run?

I just logged into MP last weekend and there was a pop-up reminding us that accounts were not to be shared in addition to the new, "you can only see a movie once" rule. Total speculation, but my guess is that a good chunk of that was people sharing accounts.

[emodendroket]

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but yes, that is my thinking too.

[losvedir]

I saw Black Panther three times in theaters with my MoviePass because, well, why not? The only theater near me only has 5 screens (I live in a small town), so my wife and I end up with some repeat viewings.

That said, I love MoviePass but know it's not sustainable. I wish they had rolled out these changes earlier. Something like no repeat viewings, 8 movies per month, different price depending on where you live (tickets at my theater are only $9 normally), etc, could have made this thing much more sustainable, and still probably had most of the growth.

[emodendroket]

I can't see the appeal of watching a movie I literally just watched.

[CoolAndComposed]

It's pretty common to notice new details when reviewing things, where you don't need to focus on the same details you did last time.

Foreshadowing is all over in movies, as well as artifacts of cut subplots/scenes. Re: /r/moviedetails

[melq]

I'm not a big movie watcher but I definitely repeatedly consume other media. Music in particular, tv and print as well. If an album comes out that I like a lot, I'll often play it front to back a dozen of times in a week.

[exolymph]

Some people enjoy reveling in the details they missed the first time around. Different strokes for different folks.

[Sangermaine]

Great, that's your preference. Other people do enjoy it. People have different preferences.

[AJ007]

Sometimes I fall asleep and have to go see the movie again.

[emodendroket]

Not my usual reaction to films that put me to sleep.

[cdelsolar]

because it was awesome?

[emodendroket]

The world is full of awesome movies. Cinema has existed for more than a century.

[matte_black]

What you will understand someday in life is that as we grow older, we have less desire to explore new things, and prefer to revisit familiar things while we still can.

[emodendroket]

Watching the same movie three times in a week (which has just come out and so can hardly be a nostalgic favorite) is taking that to a bit of an extreme, more reminiscent of the viewing habits of a child.

[Consultant32452]

It seems to me with relatively minor tweaks there should be a sustainable product. Like maybe you can't repeat the same move within a week or something. Because for the vast majority of movies there's a lot of empty seats and empty seats mean no overpriced snack sales.

[hkmurakami]

Back when Titanic came out, some classmates of mine saw the movie 9 times in theaters.

Abuse is likely a big factor but there are likely some honest actors in there too.

[Finnucane]

When I was 13 in 1977 I saw Star Wars in the theaters about that many times. Of course, in those days there was no expectation that in a couple of months you'd be able to watch on your hi-def home theater-size TV, and the big screen was still actually a big screen.

[dawnerd]

Question is, how do they know it’s abuse? I have a feeling they’re just using that as a catch all for all heavy users.

[emodendroket]

Well, the heuristic seems to be that if you are getting tickets to the same film more than once, you're likely abusing the service.

[patmcc]

>>Getting rid of repeats saving 35% seems to point to some pretty widespread abuse. Who are these people seeing the same movie multiple times during its initial theater run?

I wouldn't be surprised if there were people (especially those that buy MoviePass, I'd expect them to be movie fans) that see big blockbusters two or three times. But yeah at 35% savings that's gotta be largely abuse.

[dawnerd]

I don’t think it’s largely abuse. Some of us wanted to go again with another group of friends. Example, I saw jumanji alone, liked it enough I brought some friends and watched it again. Star Wars was the same way. I’m fine with them removing it since I’m still getting way more from the service than I’m putting in, but I don’t want to be called an abuser for doing what their own terms said I could do.

[patmcc]

Oh, I want to be clear - I don't think it's abuse at all to use it as you describe - even if you want to go to the same movie every day that seems completely fine to me. Abuse would be getting the ticket using MoviePass and then giving it away/selling it to someone else.

[xref]

I've still got my 4 ticket stubs from seeing Star Wars: The Phantom Menace repeatedly.

(cut me some slack in 1999 Star Wars had a ton of goodwill and excitement built up, we couldn't know what the Prequel Era would end up being :)

[meestaahjoshee]

> the company has also said that the goal was to prevent people from using MoviePass to buy tickets for friends who aren’t subscribers.

[emodendroket]

Yes, I saw that, but the article seems to suggest that they're being disingenuous.

[evgen]

I know several MoviePass subscribers who do this. Apparently, if you purchase at the theatre with your MoviePass then MP counts the purchase as 'that day', but the ticket kiosk lets you select a future date and MP is none the wiser regarding the details of the purchase. People who pass by a theatre on a regular basis (on the way to work, the gym, etc) can simply collect up a batch of tickets for a future showing and then take a bunch of friends.

[jonny_eh]

I don't get this since MoviePass can only be used once per day.

[rtkwe]

That only prevents people from going to see the movie with their friends after buying their ticket. People oculd still buy tickets for their friends to go separately.

[pxeboot]

Since you can buy tickets in advance, people were buying tickets on different days for a future showing.

[jonny_eh]

You've only ever been able to buy tickets for showtimes on the same day they were bought.

[gamblor956]

You need to tell MoviePass that you're buying a ticket for that day, and they load the money onto a debit card. You can then use that money to buy whatever ticket you want.

Because of that, MoviePass recently began requiring people to take photos of the tickets they buy. This introduced a new step to the process: now, you need to buy a ticket, take a photo for MoviePass, and then exchange it for the ticket you actually want.

[jonny_eh]

Funny, I never thought to do that.