[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.