The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now • Hacker News Board

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#241

Post by myaccountforhn » Sun, May 20, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #16

> The king of money-losers, of course, is Amazon, which went years without turning a profit. Instead, it plowed billions of dollars back into its business The key difference with Amazon is that Amazon could choose to be profitable at any time- just raise prices ever so slightly, reducing growth in customer demand, and the stop building out its enormous logistics empire and new businesses. Amazon could have had profit…

It seems to me that Amazon the business doesn't really need to turn a profit as long as it's stock price stays high because then its investors are still making money.

Now the thing that Amazon has for it that Moviepass does not is that Amazon gets to collect user data and use that to sell more for itself. Moviepass seems to get to collect user data, however it doesn't own the theaters so it must find partnerships with the bigger theater chains. They're hedging that they can create such a large user base and show that they can bring a lot more traffic to theaters and with that increased traffic (and lower ticket price for the customer) will sell more concessions.

For Moviepass to work ticket prices must go down (at least for them) while theaters still make more money because of larger concession sales.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#242

Post by slg » Sun, May 20, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

reboog711 wrote: post #238

jonknee wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd counter that MoviePass is not creating any value for you, they're literally just paying for you. That's not anything special.

I disagree. They are saving me a ton of money. To me as a customer, that is a lot of value. I sure hope that Moviepass and the theaters can figure out a way to make it work.

You are misunderstanding the point. We aren't saying that MoviePass doesn't provide value for customers. We are saying that MoviePass doesn't create any value for customers. They are not increasing supply. They are not increasing demand. They are not adding efficiency. They are simply paying for the money you save with capital from investors. Every dollar you save on a movie ticket is a dollar that MoviePass pays to the theater. That is great for quick growth but I can't think of a single successful business that works that way.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#243

Post by RhodesianHunter » Mon, May 21, 2018, 7:23 AM UTC

irln wrote: post #134

arcbyte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely the money has to dry up sometime? Yup, this fall. By the close of 2018 all the world's central banks will be in quantitative tightening after having spent the past 10 years perpetuating an unprecedented level of quantitative easing.

Three data points: Fed Balance Sheet https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL Fed Balance Sheet hasn't been reduced in any meaningful way. Bank credit: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTBKCR Bank's have themselves continued increasing the money supply. Worldwide debt: https://www.iif.com/publication/global-debt-monitor/global-d... Random snippet from Q32017

1. Does not account for inflation, which would show a 5.8% drop between 2014-2018.

2. Viewing this chart on a logarithmic scale as it should be, or viewing the same data charted as year over year percent change, paints a much less intimidating picture. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTBKCR

3. "This publication is available to IIF Members only."

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#244

Post by RhodesianHunter » Mon, May 21, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

cimmanom wrote: post #206

adventured wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. The US is currently undergoing a renaissance of successful government programs that have massively cut poverty and homelessness over the last 15 years. "Child Poverty Falls to Record Low [nearly a 50% reduction since 1967], Comprehensive Measure Shows Stronger Government Policies Account for Long-Term Improvement" https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/child-p... "The U.S. Social Safety Net H…

Given how much larger our population is, what would be shocking would be if our social safety nets were smaller than those of Canada, Australia, or South Korea.

The relative measure used in the linked article is a percent of GDP used on social welfare programs.

It's not an absolute value comparison.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#245

Post by pwinnski » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

cornholio wrote: post #199

pwinnski wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! It's the difference between losing money on a macro-level and losing it on a micro-level. You can't lose money on every transaction and make it up in volume, as the old joke says. But you can make money on every transaction and choose to invest it in expansion, so that you lose money overall.

> You can't lose money on every transaction and make it up in volume, as the old joke says. You actually can. It's the oldest trick of the industrial age, mass production and economies of scale. A good rule of thumb is that increasing production of a physical good by a factor of 10 will drop the unit cost by half. For non-tangible goods the effect is even more pronounced. The fist copy of Microsoft Windows might cost…

The saying isn't about economies of scale eventually turning money-losing transactions into money-earning transactions, though.