MoviePass Just Keeps Getting Worse
Six months ago I predicted MoviePass's insane new pricing system, in which users pay $9.99 a month to watch a movie a day with no extra charges, might be too good to be true.
A series of controversies and setbacks have plagued the disruptive moviegoing company since its user base absolutely exploded last fall. Just a few weeks ago, a location tracking controversy forced the company to remove that functionality from its app after security concerns. More recently, their "unlimited movies" deal dropped from one per day to four per month. Still a decent deal for a lot of moviegoers, but no longer the tool for hardcore cinephiles it once was.
Now, MoviePass is barring users from seeing the same movies more than once; a functionality that was near-essential to the MoviePass experience. Loved Phantom Thread? Revisiting it a second and third time was easy and affordable. Not anymore.
As with any product cycle, we are now reaching the part in MoviePass's reign where, now that they have a bunch of subscribers, they can afford to start turning the screw on their most loyal fans. They're throwing some stuff at the wall, and seeing what they can get away with. It's likely this won't be the last unpleasant surprise they try.
Despite it all, MoviePass keeps growing, and as long as even a handful of movies per month continues to cost people less than the price of one movie ticket, it's still an objectively good deal. If you're still on the fence, this is still a good time to get in on the action. Maybe though, it might be a good idea pay attention to those boring "changes to our policies" emails you'd normally just banish to trash. You never know when they might pivot to something completely insane like "You can only watch Ready Player One this week sorry bud."
