The following report is from Motherboard:
MoviePass is relaunching as a web3-style application where users earn credits to go to the movies by watching ads. The new MoviePass will use facial recognition and eye tracking tech in your phone to make sure that you’re actually watching those ads.
MoviePass has been around since 2011, but really took off in 2016 when it launched a program where users could pay a flat fee to see unlimited movies in the theater. A lot of people saw a lot of movies cheaply, and the system was never quite sustainable. It died in 2019 and declared bankruptcy in 2020 after several attempts to keep it afloat fell flat.
Now co-founder Stacy Spikes is back in charge and MoviePass 2.0 is here. Spikes detailed his plan during a relaunch event on February 10.
The new MoviePass is leaning into all the latest Silicon Valley buzzwords—web3, wallets, and play to earn schemes. Spikes—wearing the standard black turtleneck, jeans, and tennis shoes associated with Steve Jobs and Elizabeth Holmes—announced that MoviePass is moving towards a system where people watch ads to earn virtual currency that they then spend on movies.
It’s a way to close that loop and make it far more efficient of a system. I want to be able to see it for free. Advertisers have put a pre-show together not unlike what you’d normally see when you go to a movie theater but this is customized for you.
Spikes said.
Spikes said that all of this will happen locally on the users phone.
Part of the direction we’re doing from a web3 perspective is, this is happening only on your phone, uniquely to you, and the credits that are earned are your credits that go into your virtual wallet that you get to spend. So it’s your own money.
He said.
The new MoviePass will also use your phone’s cameras to make sure that you’re actually watching the ads.
As I’m looking at it, it’s playing back. But if I stop and I’m not paying attention to it, it actually pauses the content.
We had an early version of this where you know what happened. People put the phone down and left and didn’t pay any attention to it. Right now 70 percent of video advertising is unseen. This is a way that advertisers get the impact they’re looking for but you’re also getting the impact yourself.
Spikes said while watching an ad during the presentation.
Spikes described a world in which people could purchase products advertised to them directly through the MoviePass app and earn more credits towards free films. He also said MoviePass will open up some of the company to equity investment from members. Buy a big enough stake in the company and you earn benefits, including a lifetime membership.
This technology is going to launch this summer. Only time will tell if people are willing to let their phone track their eyes as they watch ads so they can see Spider-Man for free.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[11] Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. [12] And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.Jeremiah 18:11-12
All because the masses want their cheap, petty, and junk entertainment rotting their brains out and stealing their time from them, big-tech shows up to make sure the masses are mind-controlled further.
This is the latest propaganda tool in disguise. With things like DVR in place (though cable network is dissipating, and replaced with streaming networks), it is way too easy to record a program in advance, and then skip through all the ads. Now, if companies have an agenda or message they want the people to see, now the people have no option to look away if they use this app; but get cheap crypto in return. This is identical to the WorldCoin concept.
This concept will no doubt spread to everything else it seems, especially as the world transitions into the metaverse and cryptos will most likely be used in it.
Once again, clearly demonstrated, it all has to do with making money.
[9] But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. [10] For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.1 Timothy 6:9-10
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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