Members blue2blue Posted April 23, 2015 Members Share Posted April 23, 2015 Only a few weeks after a mega-glitzy promo extravaganza with a stable of top pop stars gushing about a new era for music -- the supposed savior of music, Jay Z's newly acquired Tidal subscription service, is tanking -- hard -- and many economic analysts seem to feel their goose is cooked. The promo blitz itself was a bit jaw-dropping, in part for the line-up of big stars -- but mostly because of the extraordinary tone-deafness of the whole affair. Here were glitzed out superstars, some of whose public persona is pretty much all about the bling, and they're prattling on about how poor musicians are finally going to get paid. But, of course, there wasn't a poor musician in sight. And not-necessarily-broke but hard-working, hard-touring indie music heroes tended to be withering in their disdain for the megastar-studded service in social media and music blogs. Hear that? It’s the sound of the Tidal wave — crashing. Two weeks after rapper-entrepreneur Jay Z brought out Beyoncé and a half-dozen of the pop music world’s biggest stars onstage with him to roll out the Tidal high-quality music service as a new business model in the streaming world, the Tidal app has plummeted out of iTunes’ Top 700 iPhone apps chart. Tidal flops out of iTunes Top 700 apps chart as company attempts reboot Jay Z’s music-streaming service Tidal struggles despite celebrity fanfare And a lot of folks 'favorite' news bit on Tidal: http://Kanye West deletes all refere...s Twitter feed One of the worst bits of news for the Tidal crew: Even as Tidal dropped from an early position in the iPhone app store top 20 to completely out of the top 700 (!) Spotify was increasing its grip on the stream market -- and even the woeful Beats Music app (desperately in need of Apple-izing in the view of some observers) has risen toward the upper reaches of the iOS apps charts. (Of course, Apple has a cadre of hardcore fan/followers who would make Jay Z and Kanye sweat blood in envy. And heaven knows, only the terminally goggle-eyed and unthinking could love the current Beats Music service.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted April 23, 2015 Members Share Posted April 23, 2015 Well, tides come in, and tides go out. It's just that the cycle here was really fast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 23, 2015 Author Members Share Posted April 23, 2015 Well, tides come in, and tides go out. It's just that the cycle here was really fast Bad planetary alignment, I'm thinking. Too bad, because I would really like to see the stream industry adopt lossless streaming -- but a lot of people are now going to write off the concept. And, to be frank, it appears that most of the consumer action in streaming centers around mobile use -- and lossless FLAC vs 320 is a pretty dicey proposition when it comes to paying for ridiculously expensive mobile bandwidth in the States. If you can't tell the diff -- and very few if any can reliably under ABX testing on good playback (at listening levels*), so how many are going to notice the diff on a typical mobile device -- even if it's plugged into a good amp and speakers. A ~2.5x increase in music data usage for a probably unnoticeable improvement is probably not a make-sense for many users. (And then add on the extra $10 Tidal charges for the lossless tier ($20, as opposed to Spot's $0 / $5 [mid-fi] /$10 [320k] tiers) and it's that much less likely to be seen as worthwhile. But, really, while the service itself faced uphill marketing challenges, the ridiculously misguided bling-fest launch probably sealed their fate. Some American pop fans may like to wear their upwardly mobile aspirations around their neck (in the form of overpriced, bad-sounding Beats headphones), but what you spend on streaming doesn't show. And then, the whole bling-thing really only plays with the working class hip hop crowd, for the most part. College students, hip culture insiders, and poor musicians tend to roll anti-bling, maybe even more so in this era of increased awareness of jury-rigged economic systems favoring the further enrichment of the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the middle class and working poor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted April 23, 2015 Members Share Posted April 23, 2015 I haven't checked out Tidal, but hear that the interface is clumsy. True? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 23, 2015 Author Members Share Posted April 23, 2015 I haven't checked out Tidal, but hear that the interface is clumsy. True? [blue2blue hangs head in shame] It's one of the few I haven't used, I'm afraid. I'm sitting here looking at the free trial page and thinking... well... I could... I, too, heard it was clunky. But what do I know? I think the Beats Music player was just-about broken. But then Apple appears to have substantially changed its UI [it's basically the new iOS player] -- so maybe I'm not so out of step -- not to mention Applifying it's look. And thank heaven on the latter! I may not be the biggest fan of the 800 pound albino gorilla, but they put together a nice looking UI as a rule, something I wouldn't be saying about the people responsible for the dorky gamer-black-and-red Beats Music interface. So, maybe I will try Tidal... but if it's really tanking as hard as the backchatterati make it sound, It might not even last my 30 day free trial... hate to have them fold down before I got my refund. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted April 27, 2015 Members Share Posted April 27, 2015 The latest conspiracy theory is that Apple is pushing hard to tank Tidal so it doesn't get a foothold before Apple introduces its own streaming service. Hmmm.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 27, 2015 Author Members Share Posted April 27, 2015 The blogger at BGR whose piece on Tidal's poor app DL numbers apparently spurred a number of follow-on articles across the media had some pointed words on the 'smear campaign' (bottom line seems to be that if there are millions being spent on a smear campaign, he didn't get his ). BGR: Jay-Z says Tidal criticism is part of an organized ‘smear campaign’ by big companies BGR: The same strategy that helped make Jay-Z’s Tidal a disaster is making Apple look brilliant And from the snark factory... Daily Beast: Jay Z’s Tidal Is a Disaster: The Hip-Hop Icon Defends Tidal Against ‘Smear Campaign’ Last, from a free-thinking new capitalist at Forbes comes a trope-turned-thought-piece on how Tidal might reverse their fortunes by putting their money (our money?) where their mouth is... actually paying struggling artists a little more per stream and already rich mega-pop artists (who typically have tens of thousands of times more streams than regular working musicians) a little less: Forbes: Tidal Music Streaming Service Could Save Itself By Redistributing The Wealth One thing I have to say about the 'exorbitant' monthly fee: people kvetch about the high price -- but Rhapsody for years was ~$15 a month for 160 kbps with much less selection (since improved, along with the rest of the stream-o-sphere). And Tidal's FLAC files require around 850-900 kbps of bandwidth to deliver their lossless CD quality. That's around 2-1/2 the b/w required by 320 kbps files used in the highest stream qualities provided by others like Google, Spotify, Beats, etc. We don't know how much their b/w costs them, but we know it's not free. And Tidal offers the same 320 kbps streams as others for a 'plebe' tier at the same ~$10/month as the others. So, I really think the 'exorbitant' tag is seriously misplaced. They offer a regular service at a regular price and a premium service at a premium price. That said, I'm sticking at Google's All Access for now ($10/320's). I 'invested' myself in it over the last year, customizing it, learning the ins and outs, building my 'favorites' library, creating playlists (though it's quite slick creating a good playlist/queue on the fly so I generally just do that) and uploading stuff from my own collection (to the attached private music locker) that isn't in the stream-o-sphere yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted May 1, 2015 Members Share Posted May 1, 2015 Posted at TechHive: Tidal has been charging 30 percent extra for subscriptions bought as in-app purchases from the App Store. As things stand, those subscribing from within the Tidal iOS app have to fork out $13 per month for the company’s standard-quality streaming service, which otherwise costs $10 per month. Likewise, a monthly subscription to Tidal’s CD-quality service costs $26, and not the usual $20, when bought in this manner. “The reason the in-app purchase subscription cost differs from the subscription price on TIDAL.com is due to the Apple service fee imposed for using their service," the company told The Verge in a statement. While Tidal desperately needs to recalibrate (or perhaps even overhaul) its public relations strategy and improve the shoddier aspects of its service, the media should cut the artist-owned company some slack. It’s only been in business in its latest form for all of four weeks, for crying out loud. Small wonder they're tanking at the Apple App Store! I would opt against spending an extra $3-6 per month as well. Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 1, 2015 Author Members Share Posted May 1, 2015 Posted at TechHive: Small wonder they're tanking at the Apple App Store! I would opt against spending an extra $3-6 per month as well. Best, Geoff If you subscribe via the in-app subscription button, your subscription costs 30% more. If you subscribe through the Tidal site and THEN download the app, you should be OK. Because of a rule in Apple’s in-app purchases policies, Tidal is not allowed to link to their outside purchase portal, so they don’t mention the lower price anywhere in the app. Tidal does point out the reason for the higher price for in-app purchases, in its support pages: Why is the Price Higher for Apple In-App Purchases? The reason the In-App Purchase subscription cost differs from the subscription price on TIDAL.com is due to the Apple service fee imposed for using their service. To make a long story short, our recommendation is that you pay for your subscription to Tidal through their Web page. There is absolutely no reason to pay more each month for the service than you have to, especially when you are purchasing the hi-fi subscription package. If you want to find out more about what we think of the this new music and video streaming service, stay tuned for our review of Tidal. http://appadvice.com/appnn/2015/04/w...iption-pricing In-app subscriptions require that Apple receive 30% of a developer's revenue unless that subscription is for a good or service delivered outside of the app. Subscribing through an app to a ride delivery service, for example, does not require the developer to give Apple a 30% cut. http://www.slashgear.com/tidal-did-n...rice-29381394/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted May 1, 2015 Members Share Posted May 1, 2015 Good to know. Thanks, Blue! Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.