R.I.P. MoviePass, You Were Too Dumb To Live

It's over. MoviePass, the master plan to con dimwitted venture capitalists into subsidizing our moviegoing habits, was officially pronounced dead on September 14. For an idea too stupid to survive, it had a surprisingly long eight-year run. Everyone knew it couldn't last, though just when it would fall apart was never certain. Subscribers lived like their golden ticket could expire at any time, even if that meant watching The Meg four times to squeeze every ounce of value out of their plans while they could.

Last we heard of MoviePass, they were screwing over their remaining loyalists just to stay afloat, barring users from closing their accounts and cutting off access to Mission: Impossible -- Fallout tickets. You can only bite the hand that feeds so often before the hand decides to simply wait for a decent pirated version shot in a Chinese movie theater to hit torrent sites.

The joy of MoviePass was how it felt like legalized theft. And it kind of was, at least on the company's end. Every ticket bought was money out of their pocket, since they were essentially buying tickets and then selling them to users at an irresponsibly discounted rate. The plan worked well enough, until it got bigger than subscription fees and VC cash infusions could sustain. They tried raising prices a few times to balance it out, but customers balked.

MoviePass was the world's worst scalper. They abandoned their post in front of the venue in favor of an app, and ditched whole "making money" thing to give people exactly what they wanted. They saw a market that needed fresh ideas to change the status quo, and acted on it in the dumbest way possible. They ultimately failed, but if you want to talk about their legacy, well, they managed to scare AMC (the largest theater chain in the U.S.) into starting their own subscription model to compete. That counts for something, we guess?

Luis can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Check out his regular contributions to Macaulay Culkin's BunnyEars.com. And listen for his "Meditation Minute" segments on the Bunny Ears podcast.

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