I get Spotify and Amazon’s model. They’re attempting to force themselves into a “natural monopoly/oligopoly” position (yes I know they’re not a monopoly, they have competitors). In a sense they continue to produce, thinking their industry has high economies of scale, and once they get large enough they’ll be able to make a profit and be to far ahead for any competitors to reach them due to the high costs of the industry.
The difference is Spotify and Amazon require investing and building an infrastructure for the company. Signing on artists to put their music on your app. Amazon, building the whole prime network, which isn’t currently making them much money, but they’re now so big (with too many other companies and consumers relying on them) that they have a safety net from failing.
MoviePass is not the same in that regard. It’s s high cost environment, but they aren’t investing in anything, and they don’t really have leverage, even when subs grow. Their model can be replicated much easier, and for much less cost, by the actual theater chains themselves.
Essentially it’d be like a company that you sub to and they’ll pay to download x amount of songs for you everyday. If that company tries to leverage its way into getting better deals from the actual sellers (say, iTunes), there’s nothing stopping that seller from simply offering their own sub service which gives you access to their songs, and cut out the middleman.
It’s the main reason I don’t think MP will be sustainable with this model. It’s easy to compare them to Spotify or Netflix, but the nature of their industry is much different and their future competitors (theaters) have much more effective cost structures so even if movie theater subs from MP take off, theaters can simply offer their own sub plans with a much lower cost structure.