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This sort of sarcasm obfuscates your message. Frankly I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Surely it’s best to just come out and say it without the non

This sort of sarcasm obfuscates your message. Frankly I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Surely it’s best to just come out and say it without the noncommittal “it’s almost as if” deflection.

bena 8y ago
MoviePass was an attempt to disrupt things. As with a lot of "disruption", it's based on delivering something cheaper to the consumer. They thought they understood the costs and how they could provide more for less, but then they ran into a lot of issues that the established players have already solved. Usually at a cost. Another example is Uber. They're still losing money. And they've taken quite a few reputation hits as well. Mostly because they didn't fully understand or appreciate the cab business, which is what they essentially are. There's no one to screen drivers, so you have issues where drivers and passengers get in altercations at a greater frequency. Ride share drivers aren't required to actually know the area. And a host of other things that I'm sure I'm not aware of. And all those things do cost money. And those costs are included in the cab fares. Uber thought it could either circumvent those costs or were just ignorant of them. MoviePass thought it could present a deal but make it up either in bulk or by resting on whales. Theaters hardly deal in "bulk", especially post facto. You can buy out a screen in advance and you can usually negotiate a deal, but you must buy out the entire screen. And MoviePass does not have the userbase to justify that. And the customers of MoviePass aren't "whales". The people buying MoviePass are people who would find $30 a month for access to a theater a deal. People who see more than 2 or 3 movies a month. They went full underpants gnome on their business plan. I'm sure their step 2 was filled with convincing speeches and projections, but sometimes incredulity is the correct answer. "How do the plan on making money?" was something they apparently needed an answer for.

bena 8y ago

MoviePass was an attempt to disrupt things. As with a lot of "disruption", it's based on delivering something cheaper to the consumer. They thought they understood the costs and how they could provide more for less, but then they ran into a lot of issues that the established players have already solved. Usually at a cost. Another example is Uber. They're still losing money. And they've taken quite a few reputation hits as well. Mostly because they didn't fully understand or appreciate the cab business, which is what they essentially are. There's no one to screen drivers, so you have issues where drivers and passengers get in altercations at a greater frequency. Ride share drivers aren't required to actually know the area. And a host of other things that I'm sure I'm not aware of. And all those things do cost money. And those costs are included in the cab fares. Uber thought it could either circumvent those costs or were just ignorant of them. MoviePass thought it could present a deal but make it up either in bulk or by resting on whales. Theaters hardly deal in "bulk", especially post facto. You can buy out a screen in advance and you can usually negotiate a deal, but you must buy out the entire screen. And MoviePass does not have the userbase to justify that. And the customers of MoviePass aren't "whales". The people buying MoviePass are people who would find $30 a month for access to a theater a deal. People who see more than 2 or 3 movies a month. They went full underpants gnome on their business plan. I'm sure their step 2 was filled with convincing speeches and projections, but sometimes incredulity is the correct answer. "How do the plan on making money?" was something they apparently needed an answer for.