I mean, in the case of MoviePass, their pricing was so obviously stupid that people sort of assumed that they MUST have a trick up their sleeve to make it work,

I mean, in the case of MoviePass, their pricing was so obviously stupid that people sort of assumed that they MUST have a trick up their sleeve to make it work, because no one could be that dumb. And it turns out, they don't (or maybe they did but it didn't work). Not everyone is playing 9D chess.