Tidal was originally launched in 2010 in Norway thanks to the efforts of a handful of technical engineers. Within a few years, it became the collective property of several major musicians, primarily Jay-Z, one of hip hop's most famous billionaires. (Although he had "help" from his wife Beyoncé and other artists.) Marketed as a "luxury" streaming service, what some thought was going to be the next big thing turned into a total flop.
The business model was flawed from the beginning, according to some experts, and artists involved with the services didn't do it any favors. Consider how Kanye West released an album through the service that he constantly kept revising after its release, in other words, he released an incomplete album. Jay-Z has since sold off his shares of Tidal to Block Inc, but the fortune of the service is not likely to change anytime soon. These are all the reasons why Tidal flopped as a streaming service.
7 Tidal Was Pretentious
A "luxury" streaming service, what does that even mean? Well to the engineers of Tidal it meant listening to music in a hi-fi, high def audio file. To some of the artists who were co-owners of the service, it meant something completely different and a little esoteric. Madonna, one of the owners, said that the purpose of the service was to "take music and art back from technology." Whatever the heck that means. Also, since a streaming service is a piece of technology, it doesn't really follow logically that it can take art away from technology. But again, Madonna, what does that even mean!?
6 Tidal Was Too Expensive
When Tidal debuted it cost $20 a month, and premium services cost even more than that. The prices have since dropped exponentially, now the service is $10 a month and the premium tier is $20, but still, the major criticism of Tidal when it first launched was how consumers felt it was too expensive, even though it had higher quality streams of the music from artists like Daft Punk, Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé, fans wanted more than just a handful of artists to stream.
5 Kanye Frustrated Subscribers
Kanye's 2018 album Donda was a challenge for the artist, as he wanted the album to be perfect, but a desire for perfection can lead to poor judgment on the artist's part. In other words, if an artist obsesses over one piece and reworks it over and over again instead of standing by a finished project can lead the work to suffer. This was exactly what happened to Kanye West when he released Donda, he kept releasing the album solely through Tidal, meaning anyone who wanted the album had to pay Tidal's overpriced subscription fee, and in addition to that annoyance Kanye kept taking down the album and rereleasing it after edits. Also, the effort to release it exclusively through Tidal was a futile one, hackers and pirates were quick to download and share the tracks, much to Kanye and the owners of Tidal's annoyance.
4 There Are Too Many Streaming Platforms Already
Streaming of music and television has become a saturated market. For viewing pleasure there is Apple TV+, Discovery+, Hulu, Disney+, Netflix, and more. For music fans, they have Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, and the old-fashioned way of listening to music (records, cassettes, etc). So why Jay-Z, Coldplay, Daft Punk, Jack White, Beyoncé, Kanye West, and Madonna thought the public was eager for yet another app to cough up for monthly is astounding. It was a little out of touch of them, to put it nicely. In other words, the market for streaming services is saturated, and entering a saturated market with an already existing product is not good business.
3 The Musicians Running Tidal Were Not As Popular As They Used To Be
Coldplay, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Madonna, and the other artist owners of Tidal are multi-millionaires and could still sell out arenas for their concerts. But their audiences are people who have followed them for years. Many of the artists whose music was offered on Tidal do have a very large base, but it has not grown in a while. True, Daft Punk and Jack White are still popular musicians, but are they as hot tickets as they were in the mid-2000s? The owners of Tidal have major clout, but they might have overestimated how far that clout goes. Zoomers aren't exactly eager to listen to 63-year-old musicians like Madonna.
2 Tidal Traded Ownership Too Many Times
Tidal launched in 2010 and it has changed hands at least 3 times since. First, it was owned by Aspiro corporation, then Project Panther Bidco Ltd, and it was relaunched as the first "artist-owned" streaming service with the following stars: Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna, Arcade Fire, Alicia Keys, Usher, Chris Martin, Calvin Harris, deadmau5, Jason Aldean and J. Cole. Then in 2017 as the service was struggling Sprint purchased 33% of the company's shares. Today, the service is owned by Block, formerly known as Square. Needless to say, that amount of turnover in ownership can negatively affect any business.
1 Tidal Flopped Within Weeks Of Relaunch
When it first relaunched as an artist-owned service in 2015 it spiked to the top of the app downloads and was in the top 20 app downloads that week. Within two weeks, it was not even in the top 700. It "overestimated the average listener," according To critics. The angle that Tidal was a "luxury" service was the difference in tiers, the standard tier offered "cd quality sound" (HiFi tier) and a higher quality compression for the HiFi Plus tier. Detractors of Tidal were quick to point out that the average listener could not tell the difference, especially without headphones.
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