Oga Jay Z has decided to pull his best album from Spotify and put it on his own music service which costs twice as much. I’m not sure this kinds of moves will help Tidal succeed…
Jay Z was asked last week about the possibility that music fans would have to make a choice among streaming services based on which artists they carry exclusively. Given the star power of the musicians behind Tidal, a collective decision to punish competing services by producing exclusive content for Tidal could be its primary competitive advantage. His answer: eventually.
The process seems to have started. Over the weekend, Beyonce and Rihanna—both Tidal backers—released exclusives for the service. By Monday morning, Jay Z’s first (and best) album, Reasonable Doubt, had disappeared from Spotify. The difference between Spotify and Tidal is now just a couple of songs, but the moves point to a future for the music industry that would be more confusing for fans and probably less lucrative for artists.
Will it work? Depends on how many people can afford $5,000 headphones. It’s those kinds of people that won’t paying $19/mo for “high fidelity” music. The average consumer on the other hand, cannot tell the difference between SD, HD or Hi-fi, and won’t give two Fs. They’ll go to where the most music is.
At the root of these shenanigans is the fact that content wants to be free. At the very least, it wants to be cheap. Creators hate this, but eventually everyone will have to get smart-er about making money off content.
I’m pretty annoyed that Jay-Z is starting up these kind of wars with creative content. I feel like he doesn’t have enough to fight this fight of exclusive content. A few exclusive songs and exclusive old albums won’t make me pay an extra $10 per month. It’s not useful enough to the consumer.
He’s likely to attract disapproval from fans, to be honest.
The question, I think, should not be “will it work?” But “at what cost?”. It’s use would have risen faster if there was an ‘oppressed’ vibe to it like mega/meerkat or if it did something new like popcorn time. Now, none of the groups which encourage early adoption are passionate about it.
But wait o. Tidal is also offering the option for the same price points to o as Spotify and Co. The platform still has 5 million song less than Spotify but has tailor swift. The unique selling point is first release of music and other exclusive content - like artist vlog et al. Plus the CEO said the double price option is not for all.
I say, let’s see how compelling all this is but no qwams for launching a new streaming service with star power and not so popular value propositions.
The same “cabal” system that online music streaming is supposed to eradicate, the fight that Napster fought, is what Jay-Z is trying to bring back. I think one positive effect of this would be that Spotify (and other popular online streaming services) would now be a discovery platform for up & coming artistes.
When everyone knows that Tidal is for the guys who clog celeb gossip blogs, they would go to the others to find something new and exciting! And this could be either a good or a bad thing, depending on the preference of majority of users of online streaming sites.
P.S. I just discovered an exciting new R&B artiste called Gallant (https://thedrop.club/tracks/gallant-open-up) on thedrop.club, another awesome online streaming service. Dude would never have been on Tidal this early in his career, with just one track everywhere online. (H/T to @knightbenax on Twitter for introducing me to the drop).
Artists have major pull in driving subscriptions, this takes care of the shorter term needs: buzz, superfan adoption, exclusive content, access to stars.
Pricing will have to be flexible in the medium term. I anticipate there will be multiple tiers based on library volume, streaming frequency or access to new music.
Genius.com offers a case study on the power of access. Tidal can easily replicate verification and interaction features. Tie that in with some annotation and Tidal becomes where the Rihanna Navy or Gaga’s Little Monsters come to play.
Popular adoption will be based not on free content but on discovery. Imagine if the next Kendrick Lamar only had music on Tidal.
The article below explains why Tidal might just be a big hit. Asides Jay-Z’s major influence in the music industry, Tidal is backed by powerful companies.
Exclusive Content will surely go a long way in punishing competition.
One thing i have always loved about Jigga is that he is a business man whom I think deep down doesn’t give a shit about streaming, note he does love music tho.
I think this was done to flip the business in a few years time, when he sells his stake in it to [insert giant tech coy here] for over a billion. He is pulling a Dr Dre.
Why do I say this? Look what he did with his Brooklyn NETS! Remember the line “Would’ve brought the Nets to Brooklyn for free, Except I made millions off it, you fuckin’ dweeb”
This is the only Jay-Z i know, everyone talking about TIDAL is good for TIDAL.
I quite disagree with you.
From a user-centric perspective, i think the users hates it and the google play rating is breaking new records as it continues to go down.
I think the users are not happy and there is absolutely nothing that Tidal can do about it.
I say again, Tidal is failing and it would fail, unless most probably a miracle happens.
Selling access to content is the old paradigm.
The new paradigm is quantifying the use of said content as accurately as possible and leveraging that fan base for commercial gain down the road.
If Jay Z manages to reverse the trend by his lonesome, I will respect him as the badass who took on the world and won…
…because even Apple (in all its glory) hasn’t done that just yet.
Latest development affirms my belief that Tidal’s got a shot:
Tidal’s next attempt begins again today: Lil Wayne has signed onto
the service and is releasing an exclusive new single called “Glory.”
Tomorrow, new desktop apps for Mac and Windows will arrive, along with a
ticketing feature backed by TicketMaster that gives subscribers early
and exclusive access to concert and music festival tickets. And there’s
new pricing for college students starting next week: $4.99 for standard
and $9.99 for the lossless Hi-Fi service.
There’s no guarantee that anyone can run with Apple or YouTube, but
after talking to a host of Tidal executives and employees, it’s clear
Tidal plans to be as aggressive as possible as the next generation of
music unfolds.
Nubikayode, you’ve only taken a short excerpt from the long article.
Anyway, as long as Tidal doesn’t focus on being a streaming company, they will be fine. Just as HBO Go shouldn’t think it’s competing with Netflix.
Tidal should focus on being the conglomerate record label (read content creator) that it is…only it’s now figuring out updated ways to get its content out there.
Netfix added content creation to its streaming service. HBO added streaming to their content creation. Streaming is a commodity, content is not.
The absence of access to HBO’s highly-rated content has not hurt Netflix one bit, and HBO’s focussing on only their own content won’t hurt, in the long run, as long as they acknowledge the growing base of internet users.
So the best way to see Tidal is as a record label/content creator expanding its distribution channels to include streaming.
Everyone should include streaming for their content. But if you want to stream everyone else’s content, you have to have a more democratic subscription tier.
Right now, nothing is more democratic than ad-based. Economically speaking, the real question shouldn’t be how much Spotify is paying artists, but how much return/value they’re bringing to their advertisers.
Jayz is fighting a battle he wont win, fighting against apple music and spotify is see your death and saying let me try. allowing Nigerians to have access to try and use tidal is just a waste of time except he can stop us from downloading our free songs from Naijaloaded and co. He is a fighting a tech company and number one rule is never to fight a tech company, because they have more fucking feautures that will blow the users mind in later versions to come. Besides in Naija who has the data to stream music, i cant even browse talk less of streaming. i Laugh Tidal
