This time last year, we took a critical look at TIDAL, Jay Z's streaming music service, and decided he was doomed to fail. Why Jay Z's Tidal Music Streaming Service Is Doomed Jay Z recently relaunched Tidal, the streaming music service he acquired for $56 million. Tidal has 99 issues, and Ringtone is one. Read more . We thought the $19.99 asking price was too high for lossless audio streaming, something most people won't even appreciate High-Resolution Audio:The Future of Music or a Scam? Hi-Res Audio:The Future of Music or a Scam? Hi-Res Audio is new and impressive, but does it live up to the hype and excitement? It's a trick? Or even a scam? Read More
A year later, we thought we'd check if TIDAL is now worth using. After all, with former holdouts like The Beatles giving way to the inevitable why the Beatles embraced streaming and why you should too. Why the Beatles embraced streaming and why you should too. Music fans got a Christmas present when, on December 24, 2015, all of The Beatles' major albums were released on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services. Here's why that matters. Read More
Kanye West can be an incredibly divisive figure. These Kanye fans don't know who Paul McCartney is, and that's okay. These Kanye fans don't know who Paul McCartney is, and that's okay. Kanye West and Sir Paul McCartney collaborated on a new track. You will totally believe what happened next. Read More He has collaborated with Jay Z in the past, so it was no surprise that his latest album, La vida de Pablo , it was going to be a TIDAL exclusive.
Except it isn't. Only two months later The life of Pablo it's now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, and other major streaming services. That's not very exclusive. This change far from being "exclusive" Apple Music has also borne fruit, with Pablo's life topping the album charts as a direct result of increased availability.
Even Taylor Swift, who has been a major critic of Spotify. Why Taylor Swift is wrong about Spotify. Why Taylor Swift is wrong about Spotify. Last week Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify, inspired countless headlines and reignited the debate. about streaming music services. Read More You won't find her work on Spotify, but she is available on Apple Music. Despite their previous high-profile fight Why Taylor Swift Is Wrong About Apple Music Why Taylor Swift Is Wrong About Apple Music Taylor Swift recently persuaded Apple to pay artists for songs streamed during Apple Music free trials. But she is wrong. Again. Read More There is no reason to think that she will soon remove her music from the service..
From the get-go, TIDAL planned to differentiate itself from Spotify and Apple Music with exclusive albums. If the service can't even keep Kanye West's album alone for more than a few months, it doesn't seem like the strategy is working well. Right now, there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to join TIDAL if the "exclusives" will be on all the other streaming services a bit later anyway.
Even Jay Z, who acquired TIDAL for more than $55 million in early 2015, is starting to seem worried that he's on the mend. The Verge reports that he is preparing to sue the service's former owners for inflated subscriber numbers.
When Jay Z bought the company, he was told that there were 540,000 subscribers. It's not a huge amount, but it's not an insignificant number to laugh at either. There's a catch, though:As many as 391,000 of those subscriptions may have been bundled with a cable package or cell phone deal. That would leave fewer than 150,000 genuine subscribers who deliberately chose to sign up instead of receiving TIDAL as a bonus.
A statement from TIDAL read:
Clearly, Jay Z isn't as excited about owning TIDAL as he was last year. If even he's worried about his investment, it's probably not the best time for us to get on board..
Spotify has 100 million subscribers, of which 30 million are paying customers (although let's not forget, free subscribers generate revenue in other ways). Apple Music has 10 million paid subscribers and a smaller number on 30-day free trials.
TIDAL just made the big announcement that it has... 3 million subscribers.
That's a small fraction of the streaming market. TIDAL has done well to grow its subscriber base so quickly, but it's still a bit parts player overall. Even with the so-called "exclusives" I like Pablo's life , which looks set to be one of the biggest albums of the year, to encourage registration, the service only racked up a quarter of the number of subscribers as Apple Music, which launched less than a year ago.
Subscriber numbers are not a meaningless measure of how different services are performing, it actually plays a big role in how successful they will be. The more subscribers a service has, the better deals they can negotiate with record labels.
While TIDAL has made a big deal out of bringing mega-stars on board, it has left plenty of successful mid-tier bands out in the cold. It may be easier to convince Beyoncé to release her music on TIDAL, but she doesn't have much dominance with other artists and labels.
More subscribers also means the services have more data to play with. I've been incredibly impressed with Spotify's auto-generated Discover Weekly playlist. Discover New Music with Spotify Auto Playlists. Discover New Music with Spotify Auto Playlists. Spotify recently launched new ways to generate unique playlists that will help you discover amazing new music. We are here to walk you through these auto playlist makers. Read more . It uses the listening habits of thousands of users like me to predict what I would like to listen to. Every week I get about 30 new songs. At least 25 of them are good, and there are always one or two amazing tracks. A service needs users to create these kinds of features.
Despite all the information that TIDAL receives, it is not as popular as a streaming service. This will be a problem as you try to be profitable in a market that is already competitive. If it fails, anyone who has invested the time and money to build a library with TIDAL will be abandoned.
It may not fail tomorrow, but as it stands now, it doesn't look like TIDAL is going to be one of the long-term winners of the streaming revolution currently underway. Therefore, we have to advise everyone reading this to be sensible and sign up for a service like Spotify or Apple Music, as they seem to be here for a long time.
So, it turns out that a year later, very little has changed. TIDAL's unique selling points aren't very attractive yet, its exclusives aren't really exclusive, and people just don't sign up to use the service. Even Jay Z seems worried that he bought a bankrupt company.
As we said 12 months ago, we really can't recommend anyone to subscribe to TIDAL when there are other great services available. Especially when they are better and cheaper (or even free). I know I for one won't be registering anytime soon.
What do you think of TIDAL's hopes for the future? Have you tried TIDAL yet? If so, what do you think? Are you a budding audiophile for whom high-fidelity sound is a must? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
