Struggling MoviePass Kills Off Its Annual Plan -- Even If You Already Paid For It (nypost.com) 122
Slashdot reader nolaguy quotes the New York Post:
Movie subscription service MoviePass has pulled the plug on annual subscriptions, telling those subscribers that they will have to adhere to the same terms as monthly subscribers. The service made the announcement Friday in an email to those members and offered them prorated refunds if they want to cancel their annual memberships.... Until Friday's announcement, subscribers to the $89 annual plans had been able to see a movie a day.
CNET reports that MoviePass "is now forcing you onto its monthly three-movie-a-month plan -- effective immediately...and you'll receive up to a $5.00 discount on any additional movie tickets purchased." They're plannning to apply the $89 annual fees toward the $9.95 monthly fees, but.... To add insult to injury, MoviePass says you'll only have until Aug. 31 -- a week from today -- if you want to get some of your money back in the form of a prorated refund, which you can only get by canceling your plan. And just to make things more ridiculous, MoviePass is preying on your FOMO by saying that if you do take the refund, you won't be able to sign up for MoviePass again for nine months.
CNET's article ends with a link to their list of "the 11 times that MoviePass altered the deal," adding "This is getting sad. And a little shady."
CNET reports that MoviePass "is now forcing you onto its monthly three-movie-a-month plan -- effective immediately...and you'll receive up to a $5.00 discount on any additional movie tickets purchased." They're plannning to apply the $89 annual fees toward the $9.95 monthly fees, but.... To add insult to injury, MoviePass says you'll only have until Aug. 31 -- a week from today -- if you want to get some of your money back in the form of a prorated refund, which you can only get by canceling your plan. And just to make things more ridiculous, MoviePass is preying on your FOMO by saying that if you do take the refund, you won't be able to sign up for MoviePass again for nine months.
CNET's article ends with a link to their list of "the 11 times that MoviePass altered the deal," adding "This is getting sad. And a little shady."
Momma' said, if it sounds too good to be true... (Score:3, Insightful)
it probably is. I'm having a difficult time feeling too sorry for members.
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You forgot 1.a Borrow lots of money from dumb venture capitalists, collect seven figure salary for the few years their still stupid enough to lend you money.
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Agreed - but it is possible to believe there is a MoviePass model that works by selling the data about what movies you watch, or selling highly targeted ads (esp. to movies) based on what you watch and generating revenue from that.
One problem with the highly targeted movie ads revenue stream is if the ads are successful you will go see a movie you wouldn't have otherwise. Now if this replaced another movie you would have seen, one studio/producer gets one more movie view that another studio/producer lost an
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Doesn't affect Costco Purchasers ... Yet (Score:2, Informative)
If you purchased through Costco, your plan is still valid through the original end date.
Still, a lot of people are getting full (not prorated) refunds from Costco because of this mess.
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Deliver or get sued (Score:2)
If I buy something, you deliver or my lawyer has a field day. Either's fine with me.
Re:Deliver or get sued (Score:5, Insightful)
Two words: class action.
Absent the right clauses in TOS, this is the kind of case class actions were made for—many people were wronged and large amount of financial damage has been inflicted, but individual suits do not make financial sense.
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The biggest benefit I get is from their deterrent effects—and the joy I get from knowing that class action lawyers will finally be able to pay their bills and make ends meet.
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What deterrent? These guys are like the multi-level marketing guys. They get shut down, declare bankruptcy and recycle the scheme endlessly.
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Do your parents know you're insane?
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My guess: "Yes".
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Since they are offering a prorated refund, no financial damage has been done and the suit would fail.
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Since they are offering a prorated refund, no financial damage has been done and the suit would fail.
That's not how it works, a contract is a commitment on both sides and the liability is based on the harm caused. Imagine you'd rented a billboard for a year but because they've given you too good a deal or there's a shortage and prices have gone up they say "sorry we're cancelling our yearly deals but you'll get the rest prorated, we now only have a monthly lease that's much more expensive" that would be a classic case where you could sue for the difference.
And when doing that you don't have to go looking f
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Since they are offering a prorated refund, no financial damage has been done and the suit would fail.
That's not how it works, a contract is a commitment on both sides and the liability is based on the harm caused.
If they get their money back, there are no actual damages, since the customers were the consumers and not a business reselling those seats to actual consumers. I would be boggled if the contract didn't give Moviepass the right to terminate the service, so there's probably no breach of contract there anyway.
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THAT is something where they could lose in a lawsuit.
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Oh please.
First off, no blood from a stone. MP (well, parent company) simply does not have the money to pay out anything substantive in a class action. Lawyers would probably get a few mil for their time and everyone else would get a 'i got f'ed by MP' sticker in the mail.
Besides that, essentially no one who used MP lost out. Seeing one single movie more than covered the monthly MP sub cost is almost every circumstance. Did they not get what was promised? Yep. No argument there. But financial 'damage'
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Not really, which is why I led with "absent the right clauses in TOS". I don't get paid enough to post on Slashdot to actually go through TOS of a soon-to-be-defunct company offering a service I would never have been interested in.
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If I buy something, you deliver or my lawyer has a field day. Either's fine with me.
Win or lose, the lawyers always have a field day.
That's how the system is set up.
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Ah, your lawyer gets to go play in the open field, get some fresh air... That's nice.
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What he does in his spare time is none of my business.
Though the MLP-collection behind him on the shelf does look silly, I give you that...
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"If I buy something, you deliver or my lawyer has a field day."
Small wonder. Your lawyer gets his money from you either way while you get zilch. They just love stupid fucks like you.
Re:Deliver or get sued (Score:4, Insightful)
You high? They'll be shuttered in a week and you're behind a very long line of creditors.
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I always get my money.
When lawyer fail, Boris next.
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Skip the lawyer, got straight to Boris. At least he is honest and takes pride in his work.
If they give you a full refund (Score:2)
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No, he's got it all wrong. The way it works in American and most countries is, "you deliver or I get my money back". The lawyers only come into play if you don't get the money back.
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And for the amounts of money in this case your lawyer will get your money back and charge you for the experience.
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You get a prorated refund. What's wrong with that? What did you contract say you would get that you think you deserve more?
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How much did this cost you? If it's not several hundred dollars or impairs your life in some great way, any lawyer that offers to take your case is a sham. Walk away very fast. Actually, flag down a ride and ride away very fast.
Stuff like movie pass is what small clams court is for.
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There's also other options now that are more likely to be around in the future. Now that they've proven there's a market, the theater chains are starting to offer the same thing. And they'll likely be able to make it work as most screenings have a bunch of empty seats after the opening week. Filling any of those seats is more or less pure profit.
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Well, make up your mind, man! Is it more pure profit or less pure profit?
It's dead Jim (Score:1)
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No, people involved in this now have startup experience and will be chosen as new executives over lesser people who actually have clues. At least this is how it has worked in the past, and I see no evidence that investors have gotten wiser over the years.
This is ridiculus (Score:5, Informative)
They obviously do not want to file for bankruptcy. However at this point it looks like the best action to stop the suffering.
Their business plan relied on people not using their service. However it being "too good to be true", people actually wanted to use the subscription to the fullest. If you let people to watch one movie every day of the year, there would be people who would want to watch one movie per day. Not everyone is a family with kids with very little time, and can only go to theaters a few times a year. Many people, do have the time to go to the movies.
Sorry but your plan would have never worked, it failed miserably in the real life. Just accept it.
Re:This is ridiculus (Score:4, Insightful)
Even more relevant, the people who have the most free time -- teens and young adults with no kids -- are also the prime consumers of the product.
It was glaringly obvious from the start that they were promising more than the industry could afford to deliver at those prices.
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If they signed up for a year, for $89, and they saw 8 movies or more then they got their money's worth. I don't think they're getting screwed. These customers presumably imagined originally that they were screwing MoviePass.
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These customers presumably imagined originally that they were screwing MoviePass.
Screwing, maybe. Screwing over? Not at all. They were using the service as it was advertised. This is no different from cellphone companies that sold unlimited plans and then altered the deal so that they were in fact limited. However, since they are offering a pro-rated refund, the only real problem IMO is that they're only offering a week to claim it. Is that even legal?
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Sure, they lose money on every sale but they're hoping to make it up in volume.
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It was glaringly obvious from the start that they were promising more than the industry could afford to deliver at those prices.
No, it wasn't obvious. There's lots of empty theater seats. Every empty seat represents a lost opportunity to sell overpriced snacks, distributors pay theaters for showing trailers based on how many people see them, and theaters pay distributors a percentage of ticket revenues at the end of a run. We've been told for years that theaters don't make much from showing films, but instead profit mainly from selling food, so getting more asses in seats seemed like a feasible way for them to increase revenues. The
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Well, make up your mind, man! Is it popcornholes or pieholes?
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I fail entirely to see the link between watching films and shovelling butter slathered popcorn.
I watch over a dozen movies every month and I haven't eaten popcorn for over two decades.
My choice of where and how to watch films includes cost, availability, convenience and other factors. Being able to see films in a cinema for less than the cost of my TV movie channel subscription would indeed be highly attractive, entirely rational and completely unlinked to anything you could describe as 'greed'.
So no, "the
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The worst part to me is no aftercare (Score:2)
If there were actually people that watched what Hollywood is putting out every day, they obviously at this point are in dire need of medical attention. Where will the funding for that come from if MoviePass declares bankruptcy?
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I wouldn't work for 'em at this point, though. I'd' be surprised if the payroll checks haven't already started bouncing.
I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any (Score:2, Funny)
So Movie Pass has gone all Darth Vader - "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsW9MlYu31g
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Going by the number of times they've done that, I'd say Movie Pass has gone Robot Chicken [youtube.com].
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You really want to sit through unwanted ads and pay every time you want a movie on demand?
Support Netflix and skip your local cable company.
Who would back this company to begin with? (Score:2)
I don't understand how someone could ever think this could work. Of course they can't keep this up where someone could go see 30 movies a month for $10. It almost makes me think there is some kind of shadiness going on. Someone create a big company that people love... knowing that it is not sustainable... get financial backing because of how popular it certainly would be... cash out before it tanks... go to Disney World.
Re:Who would back this company to begin with? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand how someone could ever think this could work.
They were depending on people like me. See, I subscribe to Netflix...but I watch approximately 20 hours a year, so Netflix makes a solid profit margin on me. There are probably enough Netflix subscribers like me where the binge watchers are subsidized, and it all evens out because both of us want to pay a flat rate.
The problem Moviepass had was that they lacked balance. People like me weren't going to sign up because the half-a-dozen times a year I go to the movies is about the same cost as an annual Moviepass subscription - I'd have to go to the movies more often to justify it. The people who were going to jump on the deal were the people who were already going to the movies very regularly, so selling them movie tickets for less than half of what they were already paying just wasn't going to go their way.
Moviepass could have fared better if they limited themselves from the beginning - "$10 for 10 movies a month, but while you pick the days, we pick the show times". They could have partnered with the movie theaters to better distribute crowds during off-peak showings and banked on making up the balance at the concession stands, or at least having the seats available during prime time for full-priced customers. It would help limit the exposure of the theaters, it would set an expectation, and could be beneficial for everyone involved.
I'm unsurprised that the service, as advertised, ended up here.
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The backers were thinking nobody could possibly see the crap that Hollywood puts out every day of the month and lost.
Why does this company get so much media attention? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does this company get so much media attention? The second I heard about what it was offering and at what prices I immediately began thinking "90's tech boom bullshit". Remember the company that wanted to make a business out of home delivery of pet food and even aired super bowl commercials? Movie Pass just seemed like more of that to me.
I mean, unlimited movies a month for the price of one movie of month? Guess who's going to sign up for that! People who see more than one movie a month or want to. Guess who isn't going to sign up for this? Everyone who doesn't or doesn't want to. The only way this was a money making enterprise is if they got a lot of people to sign up who didn't watch movies very often and most people just aren't that stupid.
Anybody who put money in any long term manner into such a ridiculously conceived business is too stupid to deserve the money they lost. They might as well have given it to a Nigerian prince.
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Why does this company get so much media attention?
Because few companies make a business plan of actively trying to get stabbed in the heart with a wooden steak and then having people throw salt on the corpse while chanting and holding a bible.
I mean I've seen self destructive practices now, but at this point the question is do they file for chapter 11 by themselves, do they file because the cinemas come collecting, or do they file because of a class action.
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Remember the company that wanted to make a business out of home delivery of pet food and even aired super bowl commercials?
No. Was it this one? https://www.petplanet.co.uk/se... [petplanet.co.uk]
This one? https://fetch.co.uk/ [fetch.co.uk]
Maybe this one? https://www.zooplus.co.uk/ [zooplus.co.uk]
Perhaps one of these?
https://www.bitiba.co.uk/ [bitiba.co.uk]
https://www.pet-supermarket.co... [pet-supermarket.co.uk]
https://www.monsterpetsupplies... [monsterpetsupplies.co.uk]
Or maybe there is a market there, and well run companies with appropriate business understanding can sustainably meet customer needs and make a profit by servicing it.
Much like the film market. People want to watch films, someone offered a deal that let them see a lot of films very cheaply, they got excited about it and the media noticed lots of excited people.
If anything the unsustainable business model merely increased the media interest. People like a bit of drama, like a popular service predictably breaking.
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The only prayer for them to survive was to have such a vast membership that they could mine them for data to sell and/or control the flow of people to movie theaters in such a way that they became the middle-men that theaters would have to partner with and give discounts towards.
They knew they were going to burn through a LOT of cash before that scenario could happen, but they didn't have deep enough pockets to actually make it happen. They came close at one point.
Not only was the business model so shady t
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"The only prayer for them to survive was to have such a vast membership that they could mine them for data to sell and/or control the flow of people to movie theaters in such a way that they became the middle-men that theaters would have to partner with and give discounts towards."
That's only possible if theaters figure out a way to monetize whatever data they might get from them which is not a guarantee at all. Really they'd have to be able to make a shit ton of money off user data to make up for the neces
They’re altering the deal (Score:2)
Pray they don’t alter it any further.
One good thing came from MoviePass, at least... (Score:4, Informative)
AMC Stubs A-List. If you aren't familiar, it is AMC's own version of a subscription plan, and at more survivable pricing. $20 a month for 3 movies a week, for yourself only, with no blackouts or limits on the type of movie (3D, Imax, etc). If you watch even 2 movies a month it should break even, and anything more nets you a savings... while it isn't so dirt cheap that it will kill AMC. I would love it if they'd add an upgrade for another, say, $10 a month that would allow you to use the 3-per-week to cover others (as long as you were with them)... but that may be more niche than they want to go, or it might not be justified price-wise. If I take my family to the movies, AMC still gets a lot of month (wife + 3 kids) even if my ticket is already covered under the A-List plan. Plus any food we buy. I don't think AMC would have come up with this idea if it weren't for the competition from MoviePass.
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Oh, interesting! I am not well read about things like this outside the US. Interestingly, the AMC A-List thing is only about the cost of 2 tickets a month... which is why I could justify it. Prior to joining I only saw about 2 movies a month, sometimes less.
I wonder if they will see the failure of MoviePass as a chance to (slowly) increase the price of A-List over time? The cost of 5 tickets a month would be closer to $50 or $60 most places here in the US, maybe even more if you figure in the higher price o
Dang (Score:2)
I swear every time I hear something about this company it keeps getting worse and worse.
I fully expect that in another month or two they'll be charging you $50 per month and you can only watch a single movie a month that you still have to pay full price for. Any additional viewings you have to pay full price and a $15 fee back to Moviepass . . .
Still A Good Deal (Score:2)
I bought an annual plan last March. I see a LOT of movies. Made my money back in about 6 weeks. Have dramatically exceeded my investment in subsequent savings. If I still get 3 movies a month, I'll STILL make $$$ compared to not having it, since I will for-sure see those 3 movies - I see 3 - 5 movies a week depending on new availability and whether I want to see a particularly good movie a 2nd or more times. OK, I'm retired and have the time, and I'm ancient and get the senior price. But even und
What a reversal (Score:2)
It did indeed sound too good to be true
The Annual Debacle (Score:1)
This has been the issue with annual subscriptions as a whole for services for such as MoviePass for some time now. Amazon has even moved to a month-to-month basis on subscription services as a more viable solution for subscription services.
Profit from each customer (Score:1)