AMC Says It Will Accept Bitcoin as Payment for Movie Tickets by Year-end (cnbc.com) 80
AMC Entertainment said Monday it will start accepting bitcoin as payment for movie tickets and concessions if purchased online at all of its U.S. theaters. From a report: CEO Adam Aron said during an earnings call Monday that the movie theater chain will have the IT systems in place to take the cryptocurrency as payment by the end of 2021. The move marks a marriage of two highly speculative assets -- bitcoin, known for its wild volatility, and AMC, which became a meme stock star favored by retail traders on Reddit's infamous WallStreetBets forum.
The price of bitcoin swung drastically in recent weeks, last trading around $46,000 after falling below $30,000 last month. The recent rebound came amid optimism that a cryptocurrency compromise will be included as part of the bipartisan infrastructure package. The Senate ultimately failed to advance the deal.
The price of bitcoin swung drastically in recent weeks, last trading around $46,000 after falling below $30,000 last month. The recent rebound came amid optimism that a cryptocurrency compromise will be included as part of the bipartisan infrastructure package. The Senate ultimately failed to advance the deal.
Here's an idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're desperate (Score:3)
They will do anything to get folks back into theaters
Yeah, basically AMC is desperate: they will try anything to get people back into the theatres, because the COVID lockdown drove them to the brink of bankrupcy.
except something that really matters. Here's an idea, how about 50% ticket and snack prices?
That would drive them over the brink and into bankruptcy, of course, since if they cut their prices by a factor of two they would be losing money.
A healthy corporation can do that sometimes-- it's called a "loss leader"; they lose money for a while in the hopes of building up audience that will pay them back later. If you're already nearly bankrupt,
Re: They're desperate (Score:2, Insightful)
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I can't wait to pay capital gains tax on all my purchases at AMC.
Re: They're desperate (Score:1)
"Bitcoin is bad because the government that attacks it constantly is powerful. This is a fundamental problem with cryptocurrencies somehow"
Gimme a break bro.
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What transaction fee? I had a cashier $10 and they hand me the correct change. No fee, no wait.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin's transaction fees are around $2.50.
Oh, maybe you were thinking of the 3-5% price increase that retailers build into the cost of what they're selling to cover credit card fees. Bad news, Bubba... you'll still be paying the price that includes that fee, but you get an additional Bitcoin transaction fee added as well. Have fun paying more for everything! I'll just be over here paying less for
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Meanwhile, Bitcoin's transaction fees are around $2.50.
Nonsense. Transactions of this type will be made over the Lightning network, and the fees are a fraction of a cent.
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1. The transaction costs are relatively high
Are you talking about dollars or Bitcoin?
Inflation hurts everyone.
Deflation hurts everyone when the economy grinds to a halt.
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Deflation hurts everyone when the economy grinds to a halt.
Give one example of this ever happening.
The industrial revolution was/is hugely deflationary and has transformed our lives for the better.
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If the value of money goes up over time, then there's much less reason to invest or spend the money you have. People start hoarding money instead of moving it around
Except that they don't. You know that. You're on /. which is all about technology that reduces in price all the time and that technology has been a huge success for 50 years.
Deflation makes people feel confident and affluent and they are ready to spend. Inflation makes them worried about the future and poor so they save or, at best, buy something like gold or property and sit on it. This has been seen over and over again.
Re:They're desperate (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends how full the theatres are...
A half full theatre with full paying customers brings in the same ticket revenue as a full theatre with customers paying 50%, but the latter will bring in more ancillary revenue such as food and drink sales. Getting people through the doors also gives the opportunity to encourage them to come back and see other movies, or upsell them to more expensive seats etc.
but make it up on volume [Re:They're desperate] (Score:2)
Depends how full the theatres are... A half full theatre with full paying customers brings in the same ticket revenue as a full theatre with customers paying 50%,
Nope. Net revenue is income minus outgo. You do know that movie theaters pay the film distributors for every seat? A half full theater with full paying customers costs half as much as a full theater with discounted tickets.
but the latter will bring in more ancillary revenue such as food and drink sales.
Nope. You missed the part where the OP said that food and drink prices would also be cut fifty percent. If their full-price margin is less than fifty percent... then you're proposing that they will lose money on every sale ("but make it up on volume," as the old joke goes.) If their f
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They will do anything to get folks back into theaters
Yeah, basically AMC is desperate: they will try anything to get people back into the theatres, because the COVID lockdown drove them to the brink of bankrupcy.
You don't get it, do you?
Nobody's gonna pay for a movie ticket with Bitcoin, and they know it.
What really happened is that the directors of AMC just bought a load of Bitcoin and they want to hype it by pretending it's worth something.
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To be completely fair, AMC was swirling the drain well before COVID happened. The chances of them surviving the next decade even without the pandemic were pretty slim.
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Here's an idea, how about 50% ticket and snack prices?
Good luck getting the movie studios to agree to that. They would rather use streaming services that have much higher profit margins. Many of which are owned by the studio.
To offer such a massive discount, the theater would have to run at a massive loss. That may be fine for a growing industry that expects to generate more revenue in the future. However, investors are already skeptical of the industry, and I don't think they will be willing to put up that much cash to make this happen.
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They will do anything to get folks back into theaters except something that really matters. Here's an idea, how about 50% ticket and snack prices?
The studios dictate the ticket prices, not the theatres. Your $15 movie ticket is split about $14.50 to the studio that made the movie and $.50 to the theatre. That's why popcorn is $10. Its the only way the theatre makes any money for being open.
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I don't understand why someone operating a 1940s business model would expect for it to still work in 2020.
I have a big screen TV at home and a surround sound audio system, as well as far more comfortable seating, control of playback, my own snacks and beverages for reasonable prices, a bathroom that isn't fucking disgusting, and I'm not surrounded by rude self-centered mouthbreathers that can't keep their fucking yaps shut, or remember to put their god damn phone on vibrate. And if I am surrounded by those
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Here's an idea, how about 50% ticket and snack prices?
Not gonna happen. Movie studios are driven by greed an theaters have to charge a lot for snacks because the margins are so thin they often make a loss by selling tickets (the studios take all the profits from that).
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Why bother, buying a ticket with bitcoin today, may be valued for millions of dollars in 20 years.
If you buy anything with bitcoin, you are just stupid. The value is too volatile, and buying it with bitcoin would be the worst decision you can make.
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A family of 4 going to watch a movie with snacks is going to cost over $100. If you end up disliking the movie, or your kids decide that it may be too much for them, then you are really wasting a lot of cash.
I don't go to an AMC, but a locally owned one, and I normally pay $5.00 for a ticket (during the day), snacks cost $10.00 which is over priced, but with the lower ticket cost it isn't breaking the bank. Yes the screen is smaller, and the sound is adequate, but not top of the line. However it is enough
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And advertisements. Don't forget the never-ending scroll of advertisements right up until they start the movie you paid to see.
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Here's a better idea: Show some movies worth seeing. Like, say, with an engaging plot, interesting characters and that isn't a rerun, sorry, reboot.
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Here's a better idea: Movies that don't suck.
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Ticket prices are pretty much controlled by the studios. New release movies the studios take 100% of the ticket proceeds and there's very little flexibility on that.
They can control snack prices, but given ticket revenue goes entirely to the studios, the snack prices have to pay for everything else - the rent, employee salaries, maintenance, etc. And since a good chunk of the audience doesn't buy snacks (or bring their own) there's less leeway on that di
Dead Business Model (Score:3)
Re: Dead Business Model (Score:3, Insightful)
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Theaters are the only time I ever get to sit and watch something all the way through without interruption. That's one of the few reasons I'd still like them to stick around.
Granted, that's not enough most of the time as the constant dogs in and out, wife talking and neighbors shooting off fireworks and running construction equipment still isn't as annoying as other theater goers.
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There is some joy to be gained as being part of experience, vs just watching the movie.
Many of the movies I has watched in High School and College, I have much more fond memories of watching, then I will get when I watch them today.
While some of it is due to me getting older and just not liking the same things I use to like, but also because when I watched them when I was younger, I was watching them with my friends, and I enjoyed being part of the experience, which added to the enjoyment of the movie.
A sma
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> Going to a movie theatre is more fun for some people,
For some, yes but I would rather watch a movie at home where I can:
* control the volume,
* chose whether I use my speakers or headphones,
* pause at my convenience,
* turn subtitles on/off,
* drink beer or whatever the hell I want,
* snack whatever I want without paying highway robbery prices,
* not be forced to watch more bullshit ads & trailers that I don't care about,
* don't have to waste 15+ mins commuting,
* plus I don't have to worry about that as
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oddly, covid brought back the drive-in theater in some communities. Which is fine with me, because the seats in my car are made for sitting in for hours at a time, I have a good sound system in my car (unfortunately there is no ability for the drive-in to transmit discrete audio channels over FM radio, though the hardware in the car probably supports 6-channel audio), and because it's an electric vehicle I can run the A/C or heat while watching the movie without distracting others with engine noise and exh
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They have giant screens and massive sound systems. I don't watch every movie there, but new superhero movies? If it costs $100MM in SFX to make to a movie, I want it on a real big screen.
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I agree, while going to the movies for a Drama, Comedy or Chick Flick, is just a waste of money, because you are not going to get much out of it. But if it is a big SFX movie, then you will at least get a good visual show out of it.
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For the money spent on movies tickets in a couple years can buy big-ass monitor and audio setup at home. Stop the movie when you want, replay anything you missed, turn the music you like way up. Eat good popcorn with real butter and hot dog with quality meat and no artificial preservatives even for one tenth the cost of theater food.
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"A big ass monitor" is not a 80-foot screen. Sorry.
As for food, go to theaters with a restaurant attached. They're not great, but they're perfectly fine.
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the field of view can be identical for 80 foot screen as big monitor at designated distances, they're equivalent.
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Do the math. That's just not true in any practical sense. At least not if you want to have any second person join you.
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I can do math, can you? 80 foot in 2.35:1 is 87 foot diagonal with 34 foot height, we'll even say nice film resolution of 6400 x 2700. Optimal viewing distance is the distance of 54 to 145 feet. Scaled to my 27 inch monitor, I get the same thing from 1.7 to 3.7 feet.
Oooo, math is on my side. No theater for me.
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what is the sum of your screen's diagonal measurement in inches, plus the number of channels in your sound system.
107
DLP projectors are really cheap these days.
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Plus you can drink a beer and you don't have to put up with people on their cellphones all around you.
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I don't care how many inches the screen is, if it's also 40 feet from my eyeballs and offset to the left because the only seats available are next to the wall. And I don't care how many channels the sound system is, if there's 4 or 5 idiots a few rows ahead of me that fail to silence their phones, or actively use their fucking phones during the movie; and I can only hear the right god damn channel anyway because the only seat left is next to the wall
The ~60" TV I have which is only 10 feet from my eyeballs
BTC vs. Doge? (Score:2, Funny)
How many theater-goers actually own Bitcoin - and use it as a currency, rather than part of an investment portfolio?
I'd have gone with Dogecoin - there's at least a slim chance enough viewers bought into the hype and have some Doge to spend that this would be . Very movie. Much popcorn.
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How many theater-goers actually own Bitcoin - and use it as a currency, rather than part of an investment portfolio?
That's like asking "where am I gonna charge my car?" a few years ago. Places like AMC have to support it before you start seeing that.
Oh and to answer your question anyway: Anybody with a Paypal account. They support Ethidium as well.
covfefe (Score:2)
*Ethereum. My apologies. Hopefully at least my typo was entertaining, heh.
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How many theater-goers actually own Bitcoin - and use it as a currency, rather than part of an investment portfolio?
If I had to guess, I'd say not too many since using crypto as a currency could mean the possibility of having to pay a capital gains tax for each purchase.
Having to keep track of everything transaction would be a major PITA for me.
How about... (Score:2, Funny)
How about gold? Or chickens? Grandma has some silverware that must be worth something.
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How about gold? Or chickens? Grandma has some silverware that must be worth something.
Or turkeys? Oh, wait. They already have those -- but they call them "movies". :-)
It's probably not actually Bitcoin (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally AMC isn't going to risk holding any significant amount of BTC because it's a "currency" that just lost half it's value and then gained back about 80% of it in a matter of months.
TL;DR; this is a publicity stunt. AMC just jumped the shark. The were about to go under when they got caught up in a Gamestop style stock boost were a short seller got screwed. They're probably trying to recreate that and don't know how.
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A BTC transaction takes several minutes to process. That's not practical for an online transaction (the browser would timeout before it was done). Furthermore the high fees mean nobody is going to pay with BTC because it would cost an extra $2 or $3 bucks for the ticket. Finally AMC isn't going to risk holding any significant amount of BTC because it's a "currency" that just lost half it's value and then gained back about 80% of it in a matter of months. TL;DR; this is a publicity stunt. AMC just jumped the shark. The were about to go under when they got caught up in a Gamestop style stock boost were a short seller got screwed. They're probably trying to recreate that and don't know how.
Same type of publicity stunt Newegg pulled [slashdot.org] by utilizing a payment processor that happens to utilize the so-called crypto-currencies. I'm sure the transactions will work with Bitcoin (read, take coin from one wallet and transfer to another), but AMC will almost certainly see that money exclusively as USD.
Re: It's probably not actually Bitcoin (Score:4, Informative)
Newegg doesn't "happen to take" cryptocurrencies. They deliberately chose a payment processor to support them, and got some sales as a result. I know I have bought stuff from them in bitcoin as a result of that decision.
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I was more specifically referencing the direct link I had, which is that their payment provider happened to have added Doge and then Newegg played up the fact that they were taking Doge when it was booming, but you are correct. They purposefully chose a payment processor that would be handling BTC, the others seemed to be a marketing stunt.
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It's just like the Goldrush. Back in 1850's people dug gold out of the ground and traded in physical lumps of gold. Today it's a massive industry going after diminishing returns and processing millions of tons of ore.
Today you can still buy a lump of gold and move it around, but it is slow, expensive and heavy. Most gold trading today is done online and the gold never leaves Fort Knox/BankOfLondon
Then BTC isn't a currency (Score:3)
Also doesn't that completely defeat the purpose of BTC? If you're trading slips of paper you need to use the traditional financial system to do it or you'll lose the protections of that system and be open to scams. Plus the extra layers that'll need to be on top of everything mean the whole thing will be like that episode of Rick and Morty where he destroyed an alien civilizatio
BTC is stored electricity (Score:2)
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"Store" is the wrong word here as it's a one-way conversion, perhaps "utilise"? This only works if the thing being produced has utility, so we're back to square one in the analysis of what use is Bitcoin.
This undercuts the fungibility, because you can conceive of other one-way 'conversions' of electricty to products that are entirely useless (say rotating a giant metal sphere). So if not a true store, then it needs to have some non-zero utility without free electricity to have value. The fact that you could
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I'm about 99% sure that if Bitcoin or any crypto currency that isn't government backed gains real traction with the general US populace, it will pretty rapidly be outlawed in the US. Purely because it would represent a threat the stability of the financial system.
Make no mistake that the increasing talk of the US releasing its own digital currency is an attempt to cut cryptocurrencies off at the pass. The reason it's allowed currently is it's being held largely by a very small subset of the population as
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1) Browser timeout - lucily we have things called asynchronous web services that allow you to query and process data without interfering the client 2) 2-3 minute processing time - admittedly this is ridiculous processing time, but it's not dissimilar from purchasing a plane ticket, where you typically hit purchase, get booking purchase confirmation (via email), and then a booking confirmed a few minutes later.
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A BTC transaction takes several minutes to process. That's not practical for an online transaction (the browser would timeout before it was done). Furthermore the high fees mean nobody is going to pay with BTC because it would cost an extra $2 or $3 bucks for the ticket.
You left out the capital gains tax buyers could have to pay on that ticket
Head fake (Score:2)
why (Score:2, Funny)
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To piss off the slashdot autists.
Cybercriminals enjoy movies too, I guess (Score:2)
Re: Bitcoin is useless (Score:2)
You don't need a cryptocurrency.
But you might want something that a government cannot print endless amounts of.
Buy a studio (Score:2)
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this was a solution 2 years ago, but no longer feasible now. everyone will just wait out the week for home streaming to become available. meanwhile movie studios will Just Say No(TM) because their box office numbers will be absolute trash if they released to DistributionTheater1 vs DistributionTheater1+2
Transaction costs (Score:2)
Cost of snacks: $20.00
Bitcoin transaction fee: $60.00
Thinking about pizza (Score:1)