Side Note
The Outline’s data analysis reveals MoviePass’s parternership to be a sound business decision.

The Outline’s data analysis reveals MoviePass’s parternership to be a sound business decision.

Summer’s hottest dystopian crossover event is MoviePass and student loan debt

Are you in crushing debt? Are you in the target audience for movie franchises like the Avengers, that release a new movie every couple months and necessitate viewer loyalty in order to make big money at the box office? Boy, has MoviePass got a deal for you.

MoviePass, which allows people to see one movie each day for a $10 per month subscription, sent out an email to its subscribers Wednesday announcing that it’s partnering with student loan refinancing service Laurel Road. Refinance your debt with Laurel Road, and get a free annual MoviePass membership! A fabulous example of our healthy capitalist economy working its magic.

Back in March, CEO Mitch Lowe casually said that MoviePass not only rounds up demographic information about its users, but also collects information about a user’s location before and after they’ve left a theater. It’s part of MoviePass’s business model, Lowe said, indicating that this data might be sold to advertisers and third parties.

“We watch how you drive from home to the movies,” Lowe said. “We watch where you go afterwards.”

Lowe later backtracked on this comment, and MoviePass has since claimed it’s disabled its location tracking feature. But since then, there have been a couple strange tweaks to MoviePass’s business model. For a hot minute (about a week), MoviePass ratcheted down the upper limit of movie viewings to four per month before customers protested.