Do y'all remember MoviePass? For those of you who don't - MoviePass was this great service where, for 10 bucks a month, you could see as many movies in theaters as you wanted (up to 1 a day). They'd send you a little MasterCard, you'd select your local theater in the app and choose which movie you want to see, and they'd load enough money on your card for you to buy a ticket to said movie, with no charge to you (sans the flat $10/month rate). For a little while, it was an incredible service for people who really loved the product being provided. It seemed too good to be true - and, after a pretty long while of bliss, it turned out to be just that.
MP was losing money - FAST. So some new investors came in, and pretty soon after, MP kept changing their rules and membership requirements with absolutely no warning. Some of the best aspects of the service, like being able to see a movie multiple times or being able to watch brand new movies right when they come out, were silently struck out of the ToS with no warning whatsoever. Customers complained, of course, but these sudden changes in rules suspiciously happened right around the time of a system overhaul, or a temporarily disabled Customer Support option, or an ugly-ass website redesign that made functionality cumbersome. It was a hassle to even get a modicum of communication, let alone helpful communication. They essentially said "This is the way it is now, you signed up for this, sorry not sorry". More and more features were removed with no warning or explanation, and after a certain point MP wouldn't even bother responding to CS inquiries. Service would randomly be interrupted. Prices shot up astronomically for popular outings - customers sometimes had to pay a >$6 premium, which was never the case before, because the company randomly decided to charge extra sometimes. "Grandfathered" plans were cut off with no explanation, forcing those who wished to continue using the service to sign up for a more expensive plan they were previously guaranteed not having to worry about. "I have altered the deal - pray I don't alter it any further" became an inside joke amongst users. Customers were livid, but there was no official community for all of these lambasters to congregate, just splintered fan-run communities on Reddit and other online avenues.
Things eventually got scummier and scummier. Service would be shut down for weeks at a time. Financial standings would be misreported to investors. They were caught charging multiple subscription fees to customers who had already canceled their accounts months earlier. Customers' accounts were randomly shut down with no explanation other than "you broke this rule we just made up". MoviePass even allegedly changed the passwords of their spendiest customers to lock them out of their account, in a last-ditch effort to stop themselves from hemorrhaging money. The company is dead now, but their astronomically terrible history of fuck-ups serves as the golden playbook of what NOT to do with your company.
Anyways... how's VMP doing? Because from where I'm standing, they're at a "end of paragraph 2" right now.
