Conversely, you could say that for all the money spent on FP+ it provides little benefit ...
... visible to the guest, at this exact moment. There may be a great many benefits that are not immediately apparent. People tend to be focused on the short-term, and what they can individually see. They don't have access to all of the information, so they come to incorrect assumptions and conclusions.
Thus, why it's enlightening that
Disney is saying that FastPass utilization is substantially higher. Most savvy park-goers who are familiar with FastPass wouldn't necessarily be able to tell you that Joe Average who's never been to the parks before doesn't have any idea what FastPass is, or that it's free. Even people who have gone multiple times don't always know. The increased exposure for guests here is a BIG deal. That's why they've also increased the number of rides with it and the amount of FastPasses allocated. It's closer to being what they had envisioned it to be, which isn't so much "faster" access to rides, as it is an alternative to waiting in a line, because when you don't wait in line, you're spending money. By the way, revenue at the parks are up 8%, so there's another metric Disney is happy about.
Yes, there are hiccups now, and it's not a smooth process. But it WILL be. Judging a major thing like this on a couple of months of availability is flawed logic. Not to mention that the "evidence" is largely anecdotal. People see "long lines". They don't see the reality, which is a fast moving line bottlenecked at a highly visible place, making the line look longer and slower than it is. This will get fixed, but they needed to implement to know this would happen.
The biggest problem Disney has right now is a perception problem. That may be just as important as if the system was "not working." Because people perceive it as broken, they need to figure out how to deal with the perception as much as the system itself.
