AMC unveils answer to MoviePass | Hacker News Reader

AMC unveils answer to MoviePass

variety.com

79 pointsgandutraveler118 comments

Nobody wants a dozen different "movie subscriptions" just like nobody wants a dozen different "streaming service" subscriptions.

The value of the early movers/original services is that they gave access to EVERYTHING (or nearly everything) with a single login/payment.

Whatever value was originally generated by the first service is quickly lost as soon as everyone and their dog gets greedy, spins up their own special snowflake version of (service), and pulls their content out of the original service. This forces consumers to choose between signing up & paying for a dozen different services, or canceling everything and simply going back to the convenience & ease of piracy, which, incidentally, makes everything from everywhere available in a single location (value!).

And yet, I have both a Netflix and a Hulu subscription, and we get some access to Amazon's video selection via Prime.

And yet, two (maybe two and a half) isn't the "dozen" the grandparent post is discussing.

There's room for a couple services with good content libraries. I don't know that there's room for each major media company to have their own. I've personally opted to skip the new Star Trek series because I have no interest in a CBS-specific streaming service.

Same, but there aren't that many large movie theater companies. AMC competing against a third-party "shitload of movies" provider isn't diluting the pool too much.

Its not fragmented enough, and prices are still dirt cheap.

AV subscriptions are 20-50 dollars per month.

Most people likely have one brand of theater around them. For them, there isn't much difference in availability between MoviePass and that chain's offering.

The population is heavily weighted to urban areas, and urban areas tend to have multiple major chains, multiple local independents, and possibly regional chains.

I doubt very much that most people only have a single “brand of theater” (or even single firm, since some firms of multiple brands) around them, for ant reasonable definition of “around”.

Where I'm at, while there are a couple AMC theaters, the place is heavily dominated by Edwards/Regal theaters. While yes, there would be more places that accept MoviePass, effectively for me, there wouldn't be much difference between availability. In fact, if the Edwards/Regal one were to offer something similar to AMC (allowing IMAX and other premium showings), it would be more appealing to me.

How many different theater chains are around you? This isn't like streaming services where it may not make sense to have Streaming Pass A and Streaming Pass B if they primarily share content.

Quality ones here, 2. Total this-or-that proposition here as they have the same offerings.

Why I didn't do MoviePass (beyond the unsustainable nature of it and the seemingly cutthroat nature by which they try to get theaters to essentially profit share) but am really considering this is if: 1) it is painless. MoviePass appears to require a bit more effort than I'd like. 2) IMAX/3D/etc.

Around me there are 3 "major" multiplex cinemas as well as 2 smaller independent theaters. Having moviepass is helpful in this case. While the major ones have some overlapping content each of them also seem to have some unique movies that only they show.

On top of this I get the benefit of being able to see a movie when traveling. Granted this may not be on everyone's list of things to do when traveling. For me going to see a movie with family a few hours away and doing something before/after is something nice to do. This doesn't work well if the theater branded movie subscription doesn't have a theater in the location you are going to. However with moviepass it is never an issue for me.

It's at least worth asking if the streaming future you implicitly envision here -- where one service, presumably Netflix, becomes the gatekeeper for nearly all commercial streaming content, dictating what is available to us to watch and, by virtue of their market power, effectively dictating what producers will be paid -- is really all silver lining and no cloud. (There are also downsides to advocating piracy as the solution, and whether it's convenient and easy is definitely in the eye of the beholder, but that's a different discussion.)

For MoviePass vs. AMC Stubs Plus or whatever they're calling it, the market dynamics are different from streaming, anyway; while there are movies that are released exclusively to specific theatre chains, they're few and far between. So in practice, very few people are going to feel compelled to subscribe to both services in order to see all movies -- they're going to subscribe to one or the other.

Also, last but not least, there's strong evidence that the value to moviegoers that MoviePass represents comes from a "the more you use our service, the more money we lose" model. I am not sure that I would sneer at AMC as a "special snowflake" for questioning the wisdom there.

The answer is simple, non-lockin to any particular theater chain. Revenue of the $20/mo is split across multiple theatre chains, and goers can see a movie at any participating chain.

Theaters get predictable revenue and guaranteed income, and viewers get a bulk discount.

All you can 'eat', and theater chain freedom are two different features. They can still keep both.

Except why would the big chains want to be involved, when they could create their own with lock-in to their chain?

Because their own chain versions are bad ($20/month for 3 movies/week for just AMC vs $10/month for 1movie/day anywhere) and will not be successful with consumers.

This reminds me of the late 90s/early 2000s when record company’s response to Napster/mp3 was to make worse services for more money. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PressPlay

I'm a Moviepass holder myself, and I love it, but let's face it. It's not going to last. It's losing money and the chains don't like it. Yes, I'd prefer a future with Moviepass, just as I'd like everything to be on Netflix, but neither are going to be the future. Like it or not, multiple streaming services and (likely) multiple movie subscriptions are the future. What this will mean is that people will only have one or two just like they have one or two streaming services.

"Because their own chain versions are bad ($20/month for 3 movies/week for just AMC vs $10/month for 1movie/day anywhere) and will not be successful with consumers."

The AMC one also doesn't involve the dog and pony show you have to pull off with MoviePass, it includes premium showings like IMAX and stuff, and if you're in a place where most, if not all of your local theaters are AMC, it's not a problem.

There are likely a few conditions where this made sense. Just like Pressplay also had a few users.

But I’m willing to bet anyone a $100 value smart contract that this thing will not exist for long.

In your case, there is no guaranteed income for any participating exhibitor because they still have to compete to get viewers in their theater for their share of the $20.

Alaa,the income is lower and not predictable.

> It's at least worth asking if the streaming future you implicitly envision here -- where one service, presumably Netflix, becomes the gatekeeper for nearly all commercial streaming content, dictating what is available to us to watch and, by virtue of their market power, effectively dictating what producers will be paid -- is really all silver lining and no cloud. (There are also downsides to advocating piracy as the solution, and whether it's convenient and easy is definitely in the eye of the beholder, but that's a different discussion.)

It would be nice if there was a universal protocol for streaming music, video, movies, and etc. It'd create something that people can build hardware gateways to spec.

Netflix is only a gatekeeper to their own content. The licensed library isn't allowed to grow because they don't have the cash to let it become a one stop shop. They did have it with their original DVD model but that's being killed off.

Do most people have more than one theater that they visit frequently? I'd personally be fine with a subscription to just one chain, since almost all chains have almost all of the content.

I only have 3 chains near me, but I visit different ones based on schedule. Theaters are a commodity to me, except for a few drafthouses that play special movies.

Well, there are standard theaters that have the blockbusters, and you are right that the chain really doesn't matter, but there are also art theaters that have the more intellectual films not shown in the big theaters. Those generally aren't owned by chains. Currently MoviePass works with both the chains and the indies in my area. Which is great for as long as it lasts.

There is an appeal for me for AMC's special snowflake. I have been going to AMC exclusively for the past 10 years or so because I like their ICEE flavors; I'm quite sad that White Cherry is being removed nationwide. I will go to other theatres if I need too but even before I got a movie pass I've been going to AMC. I'm a Stub's member too, so right now my question is if the points I get from my subscription vs the points from using my stubs card and movie pass debt card is better. I also tend to only go to one or two movies each weekend and max at three.

I'm not the only one like this, but I am a minority.

AMC was doomed they replaced their MovieWatcher program (pro consumer) that was great with their Stubs program (rent seeking) that sucks and changes quite a bit.

It reflected a change from a useful service for movie fans, to a service trying to extract recurring revenue from customers.

That was very true this evening. You can no longer get points with your MoviePass card.

This makes no sense to me. People go to movies near where they live.

This is like blasting gym memberships for being limited to one chain.

We liked MoviePass (pretty sure I even posted about it here). Then the CEO went on an idiotic rampage about people “gaming the system” and we got caught in the crossfire.

We used it about 1.5 x per month and loved it. Something came up one night and we couldn’t see the movie we got tickets for. Then they changed to the once-per-film policy, retroactively, meaning we could no longer rebook the movie we missed.

I gave their awful customer service 4 attempts at fixing it via the app CS and via Twitter DMs. Oh well!

Unlike some here I think they have a big opportunity— yes it’s built in another industry’s back but if they do it right they can end up with their own special events or even buy out distressed theaters and operate independently. Think Netflix moving from licensing to O&O content. Seems like they won’t make it that far though, subscribing to tickets in 2018 isn’t the same barrier of entry as fast HD streaming in 2008 or whenever Netflix nailed it down.

The "Net" in Netflix started as a site where you could rent DVDs, a service that, astonishingly, is still offered.

That was the barrier to entry: they had a customer base already paying them for content. MoviePass has no comparable moat.

Why astonishingly? Not everything is available on streaming.

Though, unfortunately, having driven all the local DVD rental places out of business, Netflix has been letting their back DVD catalog rot to the point that I'll probably drop my legacy DVD subscription.

It's interesting how incredibly disruptive that was, yet relatively short-lived as the dominant model.

It was a good move that they didn't name it DVDFlix or MoviesByMail!

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that Reed Hastings knew in 1999 that streaming would be a thing and that physical media rentals were a stopgap.

1) our neighborhood doesn't have any typical internet providers in it currently, so I actually prefer dvd.netflix.com

2) as someone else stated, Netflix streaming doesn't have everything whereas dvd.netflix.com fills in a lot of content gaps.

There are a few long tail effects and the sum of it makes sense, sure.

The most salient is the difference between buying plastic and buying rights.

Not disagreeing with the value in the streaming offering, just saying why there is still a market for the rental-by-mail offering existing and why Netflix would still retain the offer (my guess is they probably rip the movies from the rentals and serve those in the streaming when licensing allows and rather than treat the Blurays/DVDs as just a cost of doing business, continue that operation).

No streaming movie provider “rips” video from a DVD. Netflix gets a digital master and encodes it to various formats/bit rates across an AWS hosted server farm.

What exactly are you expecting to get "fixed"? You requested a ticket for a movie and didn't show up, potentially depriving someone else of seeing it then. I see no reason why CS should accommodate your request.

I expect them to honor the bare minimum policy that was in place when we booked it, nothing more.

Until they changed the policy with no notice there would have been no problem with simply getting another ticket to the same movie the a week later. The change retroactively apply to movies we had reserved tickets for before the change.

You can cancel a reservation in the app up until you actually make the purchase.

Handy for the theaters they don't support remote seat reservation. Showing up to the theater 20 minutes before the showing is getting to be quite the roll of the dice. It's often 30 seats left unreserved on the front row and dozens of empty seats in the actual theater.

I have tried (and failed) to use the cancellation system once. My wife and I went to see a movie, it was sold out, so we cancelled our reservation and tried for a different showing.

It wouldn’t work. It said we had both used our tickets for the day. We contacted support via the app. They responded to me within two minutes and fixed the issue. We waited for them to respond to my wife’s message. We waited for over an hour.

They didn’t respond to my wife for over four hours.

So we didn’t see the movie.

I always thought this is how this model would play out. MoviePass provided proof of concept, but the theaters have no reason to play ball and enter a revenue-sharing partnership with MoviePass when they can just launch their own competing product.

AMC will make up for discounted ticket sales in concessions. Once you get people into the theater, there are a lot of up-charge opportunities. Food & drinks (and alcohol if they can get a liquor license) make up most of theaters' profit.

I assume the UX will be better than MoviePass as well since ticketing should be fully integrated - no need to physically go to the theater to purchase tickets, find out that tickets for the movie you'd like to see are sold out, swipe a different credit card, not be able to use the theater's rewards program, upload your ticket stub to the app...when you think about it the UX for MoviePass is actually pretty awful.

Doubt many people are seeing more than 3 movies a week anyways on MoviePass, and several subscribers I know also pay for IMAX movies. For them it's a no-brainer to pay $10 more per month to see (effectively) unlimited IMAX films.

AMC also has a good relationship with movie distributors, who are the biggest barrier to unlimited movie passes.

AMC can neogicate a revenue sharing model with the distributors, like Spotify does. I’m guessing if a customer sees 15 movies in a month for 20 bucks, AMC isn’t paying the distributors for 15 regular viewings. Probably more like (20 / X viewings) * (1 - margin).

MoviePass cannot do that because threaters are middle men in their model.

> MoviePass’s business model is controversial. ... It believes that the data it collects on consumer behavior will be so powerful that it will find alternative ways to make money.

They also shakedown local theaters. This happened right near me. They told the theater that they want 50% of the concessions sales. The theater said no, so Moviepass stopped supporting that theater. The theater lost so many concession sales from Moviepass customers going elsewhere that they relented and agreed to their 50% commission.

If a theater accepts a 50% shakedown on concessions it makes one wonder if all theaters are that desperate to fill seats these days.

It is more that if people have the option of seeing a movie at a theater who accepts MoviePass vs a theater that doesn't accept MoviePass, they are likely to select the former.

So while they might not have been desperate before, being cut off from basically all MoviePass subscribers would not be good for business.

I guess the model works. In this case they had enough data to know which theaters are in trouble and could be squeezed. Someone ran the numbers and figured the lost to commission was less than the lost revenue.

And if you have to go back to renegotiate you are no longer in power position to lower that commission.

Do you have any more information on this? They wanted 50% across the board or only from Moviepass patron concession purchases? I'm guessing it's the former, but if the latter, I'm curious how they identify such purchases.

I don't know, I heard it second hand from someone who works for AMC on the Stubs program, who probably heard it through that industry's rumor mill.

> heard it second hand from someone who works for AMC

And no red flags went off?

No, I've known him for 20 years. He wouldn't make stuff up like that.

I only found references that as of May 22nd Moviepass has not even considered doing agreements for concession money.

moviepass's end game seems to be get enough screens that they can convince hollywood to give them a cut of profits from each film under the idea that moviepass not guiding customers to screens would cost them more

Interesting. I've heard from the managers at my local indie theaters (in LA) that MoviePass tried to shake them down for concessions, then pulled their theaters from the app when they refused...and then came back hat in hand 2 weeks later offering to take only 15% of concessions if the theaters would take them back.

One did, because MoviePass customers at his theater actually purchased enough extra concessions to justify it. The other did not, because the MoviePass customers at his theater were cheapskates who tried to sneak in all their own food and drinks.

I must be a cheapskate because I never buy anything at the concession. I carry a bottle of water in my bag. I'm there to watch a movie, not eat junk.

I really enjoy butter popcorn, but it's a complete waste of time to bother clarifying the butter and cooking the popcorn for the only flavor of popcorn that taste mediocre when it's not piping hot and that taste terrible the day. If I I'm making popcorn I'm making any other flavor because I'll have also have a snack for the rest of the week.

I exclusively save butter popcorn for the movies.

I went to the movies this past Sunday. Two medium sodas and an Icee was $19.00. Fucking ridiculous.

How do they compute their 50%? Do the concessions have to bought using the MoviePass charge card or do they audit the books somehow and take 50% of all concessions?

If it's 50% of everything that sounds like a true shakedown!

I doubt they use the charge card because the main reason they have the ticket verification feature was implemented because users would buy things in addition to their tickets. They basically have you take a picture of your ticket and use mechanical turk to verify.

The key bits:

> On Tuesday, the theater chain will begin offering guests the chance to see up to three movies per week for the monthly fee of $19.95.

> However, AMC’s program offers some features that MoviePass has not matched. Namely, customers can see movies in premium formats such as IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and RealD. MoviePass can only be used for 2D films.

> The exhibitor said that subscribers will not be able to carryover movies from week to week if they see fewer than three. Unlike MoviePass, however, they can even see all three movies on the same day, and they can watch movies they have previously seen. Guests can also reserve tickets in advance.

None of the articles are explicit but I assume that the subscription can only be used for one ticket at a time; i.e. you can't see one movie per week with 2 guests.

In their FAQ (https://www.amctheatres.com/faqs/alist) it says that only the subscription holder can use the tickets.

They check for a photo id on check-in.

That's what I figured. The limit seems pretty sensible. Most people won't hit it most of the time, even if they're pretty heavy movie watchers, but it probably prevents usage that's really unprofitable.

> Guests can also reserve tickets in advance.

This is a big plus over MoviePass.

At my local theater, all the good seats are sold out days in advance so MoviePass is useless until a week after the movie's launch.

This is not a bad deal. I could never get my dad who is a frequent movie goer to deal with the complexity of Movie Pass. But this he would go for. If you see two movies in a month you would break even - even if it’s not a movie you would pay money to see. My wife an I look at the movies as either worth paying full price, a “Plex Original”, or not worth even taking the time to wait for it to “fall off the back of a truck”. We might go out and see our Plex Originals.

I would probably buy her the pass at least because she doesn’t work during the Summer and she would see more movies between both our son and the two of us.

If you see even one IMAX 3D movie it’s worth the cost and unlike Movie Pass, we can order online and reserve seating in advance.

Yeah, it seems pretty reasonable if this chain is convenient for you. I don't have theaters convenient for me so I don't tend to go out and would mostly rather watch at home anyway. But going to a few movies a month is hardly in compulsive movie viewing territory and a lot of people prefer to go to the theater for various reasons.

I'd be curious how much AMC thinks they'll make on the actual pass and how much on add-on business (subscriber bringing a guest, food & beverage).

I didn’t think about the subscriber bringing a guest. Most people don’t go to the movies alone.

Exactly. So if I'm a subscriber who goes to a lot of movies and don't have a specific partner who always goes with me, I'll be inclined to drag along various friends who might not otherwise have paid for a ticket and gone to the theater.

Also important: MoviePass parent, Helios and Matheson’s. Stock was trading at $38.86 a share in October 2017. $0.44 today. Yeaaah moviepass is screwed (I am a subscriber who likes the product but understand it is completely unsustainable).

understand it is completely unsustainable

I think everyone knows it's unsustainable. AMC even specifically called that out by announcing that their pricing was "a sustainable pricing model". Not that that was directed at any company in particular. cough

For some additional context, HMNY was at $2.50 in September 2017.

As a Moviepass user I'm likely gonna ride it til it dies then switch to this because:

1. Online ticketing means I can see a movie even the first night and not worry about selling out since you have to get to the theatre to buy the ticket

3. The concession rewards will def be nice too.

4. The IMAX/3D option is nice even if I don't use it much.

This was very smart and calculated by AMC, especially on the release date. It doesn't look like Moviepass has more than a few months left and won't be able to adjust to this. I'm also hoping this will force Regal to do the same because frankly, it's a better theatre when available.

I'll miss Moviepass and glad it came, but I don't see any way it lasts. I'm just glad I got the chance to burn the VC money towards over 40 movies in the past 10 months for the low price of $2.5 a movie.

Honestly though, this deal is surprisingly good as well and wondering if it goes away after Moviepass dies. The 12 month price guarantee is amazing too though.

It is 3 movies per week. Which chances are is more then what the average person is seeing weekly anyways.

Oh WOW. I misread that. Wow that's a deal. Edited my comment accordingly.

Ouch. MoviePass' parent company was already down 30% this morning on news that they want to do a reverse split. Then 20 minutes later AMC lets this loose. I can't imagine that it was coincidence.

HMNY was up 26.7% yesterday, all in the last half hour of trading. It's now down about 8% (or 3¢) on Monday's close.

Been a MoviePass subscriber for a long time (back when it was $30+) and I am still a big fan, but this offering has me honestly thinking about switching.

I already pay for AMC stubs and go to AMC the majority of the time. Combined with being able to book beforehand, go to premieres, and see the 1 or 2 movies in IMAX that I want to each year this could be good.

Only drawback is AMC's pass not having the flexibility/number of theater's with MoviePass, especially for more indie theaters where I live. Curious to see how MoviePass responds (if at all)

And here I just bought a Sinemia[1] pass (billed annually) ... ~$10 per month for 2 tickets for 2ppl per month (4tickets total). I do like that I can reserve 2 tickets at once though (seats beside eachother)

[1]: https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans

$240/year seems way too steep for me. And 3 movies per week is too many.

Perhaps if it included 2 guest passes a month it would be significantly more compelling.

Rule of thumb, Recurring monthly revenue is worth 5x the one time purchase. If my actual utilization averages out to once a week I want to be paying closer to $10/mo for the $50 of al la carte tickets.

It doesn’t matter to me that it’s AMC only because I have a great local AMC and they carry all the movies I would expect them to.

If you could pre-pay for a certain number of months of it, it could be a pretty neat gift idea.

An interesting question here is whether this will ever affect what AMC ultimately pays the movie studios. In the same way that Moviepass had to pay AMC the full ticket price for each admission, I'm sure that for now AMC will have to pay the studios their full cut for each admission. But will the exhibitors start approaching the studios about working out a revenue sharing model for subscription passes that's not tied to individual admissions?

The only theater in my town is an AMC "Classic" which means they don't have Imax, or Dolby Cinema and I don't care about 3d so I think I'll stay with Moviepass as long as AMC accepts it.

> Since 2002, ticket prices have increased by 54%, while ticket sales have fallen 22%.

The movie-theater industry seems to make it seem like the former is a reaction to the latter, but it's probably the opposite.

Wouldn't the rational economic reaction to falling ticket sales be to reduce prices?

It's rational only if you expect that lowering prices would result in enough additional volume to increase profits.

If you can boost your prices by 50% and only lose 20% of your sales, that seems like a win in terms of net profit.

Especially when there are so many other forces that probably are causing people to go to movies less. Other entertainment options (no streaming in 2002). Bigger/better TVs in many homes.

Honestly, you could tell me I could go to a local movie theater for free and it wouldn't change my behavior (to rarely go) one bit.

AMC fires people for wearing MAGA hats.

I am naturally going to assume people will be uneasy with AMC having their data compared to MoviePass since they are now owned by Chinese?

That might be a concern for people on HN but very likely not for the population at large.

"This guy likes comic book movies" seems like a pretty minimal data point. China can have that info on me, if they really want to pay for it.

I don't find enough good movies in the theatres that warrants paying for a subscription plan.

Personally, I feel the same way. Never really did enjoy the cinema experience, maybe seeing one or two movies per year, and as we head deeper into a world packed with $FRANCHISE films, I end up having less and less major releases to care about.

One of the folks at work has the MoviePass subscription, and while he does like going to the movies it sounds like he ends up going a lot just because he has it.

To the folks that have MoviePass: Were y'all already going to the movies frequently, or do you end up going more because of MoviePass?

Went to cinema less than once a year without moviepass. Now maybe once a month?

If you go once a month do you save money with the moviepass? I usually get discounted tickets from Costco when I want to watch.

Not all markets have MoviePass and CostCo. I grew up in the wealthiest county in my state, and we still didn't have a CostCo, but we had plenty of theaters.

I agree with you! It's been 6 years since I've been to the movies.

Most new movies suck. Not even 80%, but more like 95% are just derivative crap designed to make most of their money on the international market with CGI spectacle rather than good writing. I'm perfectly happy to pay full price for the one movie I see a month in the theater I like, especially since MoviePass and the like are just more I-am-the-product fuckery.

I don't spend $240 a year at the theatre and I have no intention of starting now.

If this is the best AMC can do while keeping a margin, then we might be in trouble.

I'm not sure why "we might be in trouble." I'm certainly not the target for this. I maybe go out to one or two movies a year and cost really doesn't have anything to do with it.

Pretty much any subscription plan has to be priced for fairly heavy users--and there are people for whom going out to a movie a week is pretty common. You probably don't subscribe to HBO if you flip it on once a month (though admittedly that sometimes seems to be the case for me).

That's even just for a single person in the household! If my significant other & I wanted to do this it would be $480/year on movies. That is insane, we generally spend well under $100. I like Marcus theatres' $5 Tuesday Movie night. It's unrestricted and you can go to brand new releases for $5 / ticket. It's really the only way we go to the theater now.

> It's unrestricted and you can go to brand new releases for $5 / ticket

Except that you can only go on a Tuesday night. A pretty clear restriction.

FWIW, in many European countries similar services operate very successfully for approximately around the $20 per month park. If it's not suitable for you personally, don't buy it, but it's clearly workable for a lot of people. For me this would work out ok with just two movie visits a month.

I meant unrestricted in content (New releases, stadium seating, 3D, etc...) as I thought I was being pretty up front with the day restriction. It's not a service either. You can just go if you feel like it.

But hey if someone feels like they get $480/year of value out of the movies then do not let me persuade you otherwise! I subscribe to plenty of services.

This is very interesting, because I wouldn't want to spend that much on movies either. Yet a decade ago, people were happy paying $1000 a year for a cable subscription. Not directly the same value proposition, but similar.

It seems like the price people are willing to pay for entertainment has gone down significantly, in sync with it becoming far cheaper and more abundant. So movie theaters are in trouble if they're selling entertainment by quantity, because the supply only goes up.

I think they're more successful selling cultural commonality; you watch the latest popular release so that you can talk about it with other people, and the marketing has already gotten you excited about it. (I find being pre-excited about something and thus not having to learn about and pick from a huge array of options a value-add all on its own)

>Yet a decade ago, people were happy paying $1000 a year for a cable subscription.

Many still do. Including myself but this will probably be the year I drop it even though I get no live TV otherwise.

Without a doubt my favorite subscription has been YouTube TV. Can’t recommend enough (no affiliation whatsoever).

It's definitely an option. Though I suspect that, with my Internet bundle, dropping cable and adding this probably wouldn't save me a huge amount of money.

Yeah this is the boat I'm in. Cut the cord almost 10 years ago now (I do live in a town with decent over the air digital) and saved money at first but the "trend" has been to just slowly up the cost of internet.

With a subscription to Netflix ($11) and YoutubeTV ($40) + our base internet cost (~80$/month for 100MB down) we don't actually save much over the TV/internet bundles...if at all. I'm at $130 which is essentially where we were before...just not all going to the same provider now I guess.

For areas like where I live with terrible fiber coverage, the cable industry still effectively has a stranglehold.

Definitely true. However for me personally the value has been less about the cost financially and more about the overall delightful experience you get. It just doesn’t compare. Show notifications, cloud recording, and multi-device support just to name a few. Also, in the past, I feel like attempts to do similar cloud-based TV services have always lacked network selection quality - none of the good stuff was on there. Not the case with YTV - so far it has every show or event that I'm looking for without having to pay for add-ons or additional networks (ie NBA TV).

I still have an old TiVo with lifetime which is really the only reason I still get cable TV. Honestly, if I were to drop cable, I'd probably just do without live TV. It would be a bit of a nuisance but I don't really watch sports or regular TV enough to justify the expense.

Makes sense. At $35-40 a mo, it is indeed a substantially heftier subscription than the normal $5-10 a mo. If only!

just curious how much do you pay for your internet connection?

At $50/month + the $40 for Youtube TV you'd be over $1000 a year (not that this was what you were responding to but I'm curious as thread started w/ $1000 year).

Yeah, but in general, wouldn't it be $50/month + $60-70/month for cable and internet?

Right. Was going with $50/month for internet (but I personally can't get it near that cheap) and $40 for YT TV which puts you at $1080/yr.

I guess my real point is who ISN'T paying $1000/yr now? You pay almost that much for the internet package alone in a lot of America.

I'm $200/mo for Internet + phone + cable TV (Comcast Triple Play). Phone is mostly there because I have poor cellphone reception and Internet is sometime a bit wonky for video conferencing but I could probably drop it at this point.

Last I looked, Internet would be > $100/month standalone.

I pay $75 a month for 300d/30u. Plus $35/mo for YouTube TV.

What I don't understand is why more mainstream theaters don't have "movie nights" or themed screenings or short films. The indie theater in my neighborhood makes great money by being "the cultural community" as you say. Why can't mainstream theaters adopt this mindset instead of relying on families to pay $100 for Transformers 8 and a bucket of popcorn?

I can relax and be myself at home. Eat, etc. Pause the movie.

Theatres are usually pretty uncomfortable, they just have a big screen.

If you aren't a frequent movie goer, why would you want a service like moviepass in the first place. Just pay as you go.

Moviepass seemed like a great value to me, however I never got around to actually getting the pass. I usually just go to the matinee by myself in the afternoon and it's pretty cheap that way. But just once or twice a month.

Moviepass at $120/y breaks even with that and so would actually entice me to see more movies and maybe even actually get some concessions from time to time.

Average ticket price in the US is about $9. If you prefer watching movies at night (non-matinee prices) or prefer IMAX or 3D, your average ticket price would be much higher. But let's just say it's $10 for a nice round number.

So that's 24 movies per year, 2 per month. That's not an insanely high number. I certainly don't come close to that now; with a family and the hassle of getting a babysitter, etc., I'm closer to the national average of 5 movies per year.

But when I was younger, in HS & college, I probably saw around 24: one each weekend during the summer (nice cold theater to get out of the heat), a few around the holidays, and a few scattered throughout the year.

And if you really enjoy IMAX and/or 3D, your average would be at least $16-20 per ticket, which means you'd only need to see 12-15 movies per year for the math to be favorable.

There are about 50 million people in that HS & college age range in the US. So yeah, I agree that this plan does not hold much appeal personally, but that seems like a pretty big market to me. I certainly would have loved this as a birthday/holiday present when I was younger.

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