Jay Z's Tidal has launched as a music streaming service that is aimed at fairly paying the artists whose music is featured on the site.
Could Tidal ever actually take off? While it may be aimed at fairly paying musicians, how will consumers be affected by it?
One of Tidal's main selling points is the fact that it offers users lossless audio, or high quality audio that offers a full spectrum of frequencies not found on in an MP3 file, which is a very compressed audio format. This is great for the musicians and audio nerds among us, but the general consumer is unlikely to really care about the difference in audio quality, a feature that is certainly not enough to pay extra for.
In fact, with today's technology, lossless audio might be more of a headache for many users. Because it is uncompressed, lossless audio is far bigger in terms of file size, meaning that it takes a much better Internet connection to stream lossless audio than it would for an MP3. Unfortunately, many users simply do not have a good enough Internet connection to stream without having to wait a long time for buffering. As long as Internet is at the level that it's at in America, Tidal simply won't be able to find an audience in the same way that Spotify has been able to.
Tidal comes at a time when there is a lot of controversy in the music business over the streaming market and whether it offers musicians fair pay for their music. It generally seems as though musicians feel that platforms such as Spotify do not fairly pay artists, although it is constantly trying to get better rates from record labels and musicians. While services like Spotify charge users $10, Tidal's lossless sevice is $20. Users can also pay $10 for a standard service that does not allow for lossless audio.
Tidal, however, claims to be a service owned by musicians for musicians, charging a higher price in order to more fairly pay the artists. Unfortunately, it seems as though Jay Z and the other millionaire owners of the service somewhat missed the mark in convincing consumers that artists are not being paid enough.
At the launch of the service, Jay Z was joined on stage by the likes of Nikki Minaj, Usher, Madonna and many others who certainly don't need extra money. This actually sparked a lot of outrage among musicians and others, as it seemingly suggests that Jay Z and others are saying that they aren't being paid enough for their music. If Jay Z had recruited a slew of smaller indie artists in order to promote the service, it may have been a different story.
Tidal has a rough battle ahead of it. It's all well and good to offer a service that allows streaming of lossless audio, however, with technological restrictions and the fact that many don't feel the need to pay Jay Z more money, it is unlikely that the service will be an overnight huge success.
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