>Meanwhile the marginal cost of an extra customer in the gym membership model decreases at scale. [...] This isn't the case for MoviePass. Each ticket costs the company the same amount.
I think it's reasonable to say that MoviePass's expenses don't scale as well as a gym's, but I bet they scale to some extent. Customers who want to see movies frequently were probably the first to sign up, while those who only go occasionally have less to gain by signing up and might wait longer or be more hesitant to do so. So their marginal customer probably has a lower usage rate than their overall customer base.
Ostensibly they're going to profit in the long run by selling data on the usage of their service, not on the service itself. I'm skeptical that this will pan out, but it's not completely implausible. The film industry is huge, it faces high fixed costs and low marginal costs, and I suspect that effective marketing can have a substantial impact on consumers' likelihood to see particular films. Data-driven marketing is likely to be highly profitable under those conditions, whether it's implemented by MoviePass, a different third party, or the studios themselves.
I think it's reasonable to say that MoviePass's expenses don't scale as well as a gym's, but I bet they scale to some extent. Customers who want to see movies frequently were probably the first to sign up, while those who only go occasionally have less to gain by signing up and might wait longer or be more hesitant to do so. So their marginal customer probably has a lower usage rate than their overall customer base.
Ostensibly they're going to profit in the long run by selling data on the usage of their service, not on the service itself. I'm skeptical that this will pan out, but it's not completely implausible. The film industry is huge, it faces high fixed costs and low marginal costs, and I suspect that effective marketing can have a substantial impact on consumers' likelihood to see particular films. Data-driven marketing is likely to be highly profitable under those conditions, whether it's implemented by MoviePass, a different third party, or the studios themselves.