MoviePass’ $10-per-month subscription service was a hit from the start, enough to crash the company’s website when it was first announced. It looks like demand isn’t slowing down anytime soon either: it has gained 500, 000 more subscribers merely a month after it reached 1.5 million users. The fact that MoviePass cut off members’ access to some popular AMC theaters had little effect, if any. It’s easy to see why 2 million would sign up: for 10 bucks a month — an ongoing promo even cuts the price down to $7.95 — they’re entitled to see one 2D film a day, every day, without paying extra. In 2017, members bought $110 million worth of tickets and generated an additional $146 million in ticket sales by bringing non-members to showings. MoviePass chief Mitch Lowe said in a statement: “We’re giving people a reason to go back to the movie theaters, and they’re going in droves. With awards season here, we hope we can make Hollywood and exhibitors very happy by filling seats with eager audiences.” As Bloomberg said, though, all these new users are both a blessing and a curse to the company. Every time a member watches a movie, the service pays for that subscriber’s ticket at full price. It loses money for every member that watches two movies a month, and its accountants apparently already warned the company that its system might not be viable in the long run. AMC shares the same sentiment and once called the business model unsustainable. It’s like turning “lead into gold, ” the theater chain said in a statement last year. So, how does MoviePass plan to make money if subscribers aren’t bringing in the cash? It’s hoping to sell ads, merchandise and data on moviegoers’ habits, as well as to get a cut of theaters’ refreshment sales as they go up from all the viewers it brings to cinemas. The company is also hoping to convince theater chains to sell it tickets for its members at a discounted rate. It’s unclear if MoviePass is already making headway with those plans, but when it dropped several AMC locations from its list, it said that the theaters it works with is subject to change as it “continue[s] to strive for mutually-beneficial relationships with” them. AMC chief Adam Aron has been quite a vocal critic of the service and already proclaimed that the chain has no intention of sharing its admissions or concessions revenue. Source: Bloomberg , Variety
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MoviePass adds 500,000 subscribers within a month
Bitcoin dropped below $3, 000 on Friday as the cryptocurrency extended a brutal eight-day sell-off that has reduced its value against the dollar by a third. Financial Times reports: The currency traded as low as $2, 972, marking a 36 per cent fall from bitcoin’s close on September 7, and a collapse of 40 per cent from the highs struck earlier this month. The latest bout of selling came after BTCChina, one of the country’s biggest bitcoin exchanges, said it would halt trading at the end of the month. Focus has now shifted to the communist country’s other two big exchanges: OKCoin and Huobi. Alternative source. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Bitcoin, the digital currency that most people have never actually used, has hit a record value of $14 billion after jumping 5 percent on Thursday. From a report on The Guardian: The price of one bitcoin reached $875 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its strongest level since January 2014, putting the cryptocurrency on track for its best daily performance in six months. That compared with levels around $435 at the start of the year, with many experts linking bitcoin’s rise with the steady depreciation of the Chinese yuan, which has slid almost 7% in 2016. Data shows the majority of bitcoin trading is done in China, so any increase in demand from there tends to have a significant impact on the price. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader writes: “Federal agents are planting microphones to secretly record conversations, ” reports CBS Local, noting that for 10 months starting in 2010, FBI agents hid microphones inside light fixtures, and also at a bus stop outside the Oakland Courthouse, to record conversations without a warrant. “They put microphones under rocks, they put microphones in trees, they plant microphones in equipment, ” a security analyst and former FBI special agent told CBS Local. “I mean, there’s microphones that are planted in places that people don’t think about, because thats the intent!” Federal authorities are currently investigating fraud and bid-rigging charges against a group of real estate investors, and the secret recordings came to light when they were submitted as evidence. “Private communication in a public place qualifies as a protected ‘oral communication’…” says one of the investor’s lawyers, “and therefore may not be intercepted without judicial authorization.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 