Moviepass - The Obituary

One year ago, I was on Steemit touting the amazing benefits of Moviepass. It has been a long hard year for the revolutionary subscription program. During the past year, Moviepass has suffered from over-promising and under-delivering. It started with the impossible task of keeping up with demand. Moviepass was making money hand-over-fist and continued to take money while trying to keep up with the massive demand for the service. After dropping their monthly fee to $9.95, three million new subscribers signed up.

This massive new strain on the service immediately started to create cracks in the foundation. Moviepass quickly earned a reputation for having horrible to non-existent customer service. The Better Business Bureau racked up complaints, earning the company a well-deserved rating of F, generally a death knell for a normal brick and mortar business. But the subscription service continued to try and right the ship. They offered me a one-year subscription, which I paid for in advance in January. It was even further discounted, setting me back about ninety dollars. Not bad for one movie per day for a full year. However, it turned out to be a smoke screen. A money grab to infuse the company with capital while they tried to figure out how to stop the hemorrhaging.

Moviepass steadily declined during 2018. Investors became irate as the value of the stock dropped to two cents per share from a massive value of nearly ten thousand dollars per share last October. The program has been drastically changing as Moviepass has begun completely changing the terms of the service. We went through a period where every film was blacked out. They started requiring ticket holders to scan photos of their tickets and submit them. They started blacking out new releases. They reduced the number of films approved to six. Finally, they reduced the number of films per month to three. Any films beyond three come with a discount. I used the discount yesterday as I was already past the three. I received a two dollar discount on Papillon. With that, I pronounce the death of Moviepass. It is no longer the best deal going.

Last night, I signed up for AMC A-List. A-List is a bit more expensive than Moviepass. It is 19.95 per month, so about double the monthly subscription fee for Moviepass. But you can see four times as many movies. Three per week as opposed to three per month. Furthermore, there are no blackouts. While I can only visit an AMC theater to use this service, it includes IMax and 3-D movies as well. Not bad, as those options were never allowed under Moviepass. With Moviepass, you are not permitted to collect rewards points, either. With A-List, you automatically get the Stubs rewards, receiving 100 points per dollar for your monthly fee of 19.95. Essentially, that is a two dollar discount just on the tickets. So figure 17.95 given the value of the points you get in addition to the tickets.

Moviepass - you are dead to me. You died a slow death at your own hand. Your stock is worthless and your program is so restrictive that it is almost worthless as well. For the remainder of this month, it is certainly worthless to me. So I will be using my new A-List subscription for the rest of the month. I did not unsubscribe from Moviepass as I have four months remaining on the money I paid in advance. I will use that to see films at other theaters that I cannot see at A-List until my subscription runs out. That is, until Moviepass breathes its last breath or further restricts the terms as to render it completely valueless. It is almost there now. It was a good run. But a poor business model. Sad to see you go. But happy that AMC has stepped up to the plate with a decent alternative.