Ok, let me try to explain this again. I feel like a lot of people don't get the concept of market research / big data. So for an illustration:
Target, Sears, and who knows how many retailers have customer loyalty cards right? Believe it or not, they don't give you these cards so you can save $5 a month. They're tied to a database that keeps track of everything you buy, when you did it, how often you buy each item, etc. Now the stores aren't prudes that want to know specifically when you, John Doe, buy toilet paper. They don't care. But, when extrapolated, they can see the habits of millions of people at large, and when they tend to buy toilet paper. And THIS is where the financial benefit come in. With this relatively small amount of information they can surmise all sorts of buying habits and preferences which work both to benefit you the consumer and the company. They know when and what brand of toilet paper you buy, and thus can offer you a coupon for it right when you need it: which gets you into their store over someone else's. The systems are enormously sophisticated. Target can determine with like 95% accuracy when a women is pregnant, often before she knows it. And naturally offer baby products for a discount, and get you into their store over others. And even more so - offer products the person might not even know they want. For instance they might observe that people buying lots of baby supplies also buy a lot of pickles and they can use that to their advantage. The same data will let them know which products are successful, which aren't, and exactly how successful they are - which can determine the best price to sell them at. The benefits go on an on and on. And all this from relatively little data - just your purchase history, and maybe a few demographic marks.
Contrast this to MM+ which not only can do everything above, but actually know what a person plans to do vs. what they actually do, where they go in the park on a minute by minute basis, how long they're there, what they do, what they buy at what time, after doing what, etc. etc. etc. The value of this information IS $billions. Again, not so much from knowing what you individually are doing - there's some benefit there, but that is largely not important. It's the value of the information in aggregate. And I can't stress enough the benefit flows both ways here. The more Disney knows about its guests habits the more it can try to influence them and by doing so create more even distribution of crowds as well as provide the kind of experiences guests actually want rather than say they want. On Disney's side it enables much more efficient scheduling, marketing, operations, price -structuring, and more.
This is why I maintain that MM+ is likely to remain largely free, as well as why Disney is going to continue its efforts to make it the most pleasant, attractive, glossy experience possible. Because they want EVERYONE to use it and they want them to LIKE using it. The system is less valuable if only fans, commandos, or resort guests are using it. Sure there is probably money to be made in offering perks for a price, but only if those perks don't detract from as many people as possible using the system.
I hope that does at least an ok job of explaining the logic behind it all. Management at Disney is not a bunch of inept fools spending billions of dollars on slightly more convenient turnstiles. They are incredibly shrewd businessmen.
