For those of you who don’t know, there’s this new-ish service called Moviepass that a lot of people I know are interested in taking advantage of/signing up for. Here’s the gist:
1. You pay somewhere around $30 a month.
2. You can see one movie a day (no 3D or IMAX or other specialty tech)
3. Profit.
Sounds like a great deal. Although it does come with a few caveats:
– Not every theater accepts Moviepass – because the system (which is tied to your smartphone and a prepaid-type credit card, which they do for verification) relies on a Discover card (remember getting their offers all the time in college?), not all theaters are included (including my local favorite theater). So that’s a problem.
– They say $30 a month but really it’s $360 a year (if not more) – yes, you will be paying $30 a month, but when you sign up, you’re signing up for a one year subscription, so be sure you’re going to see at least 36 movies next year to get your money’s worth. In addition, the monthly fees can go up during your subscription (i.e. the price isn’t locked in), so you may end up paying more than you originally signed up for.
– Power Users could be kicked out, stuck with giant bill – This is the big one. According to the Moviepass Terms of Service:
27.10. MoviePass may terminate the subscription at any time for any reason or none whatsoever;
So they can terminate your subscription for no reason. Okay. And then there’s this disturbing line in the next section:
If MoviePass terminates the agreement, MoviePass may keep any subscription payments that have been received. In addition, if the $ (dollar) amount of tickets redeemed during the length of subscription exceeds the total subscription fees paid thus far, the user will be responsible for the difference.
Remember when Netflix users freaked out because they found out that their discs were arriving at a slower pace because they were renting too many movies? Or when people with unlimited data plans on their cell phones freaked out because they found out AT&T was throttling their data speeds?
This has the potential to be much, much worse.
Basically, in this case, it will be legal for MoviePass to check out how much you’re using their service, and, if they deem that you are not profitable, it’s within their right to terminate your agreement and then send you a giant bill for all the movies you watched (minus subscription fees).
I should state that there’s no evidence that this will ever happen. But the potential is there, and that’s enough to keep me from signing up.
