Jay-Z apparently thought his new Tidal service would expand his career and make him not only a respectable musical talent, but a greatly-admired businessman. Needless to say, the service has become a historical disaster and one that many think could be one of the biggest business venture mistakes ever. The Daily Beast describes what many see as the reason for Tidal’s epic failure .
“The idea behind Tidal is that these higher subscription fees will lead to greater royalties for the artists—so it’s pretty hard to understand how this endeavor is ‘for fans,’ as Jay Z claims. Tidal’s logic seems to be that fans’ money will now go directly into the pockets of the artists, but if the monthly premium is more than competing music streaming sites like Spotify and Apple’s Beats Music, how does this benefit the fans, and not just pad the pockets of these equity-blessed entrepreneurs?”
Mashable describes Jay-Z’s Tidal as a “ train wreck .”
“Fast forward a month, and the app is a tanking embarrassment. According to App Annie rankings watched eagerly by developers, Tidal fell out of the top 500 most downloaded apps in the U.S. on April 18. Three days later, it had dropped to No. 870. A rumor began the next day that Beyonce and Jay Z would launch an album exclusively on the service; that only got Tidal back up to No. 664 in the charts.”
Jay-Z is trying to calm down the horrible publicity Tidal has been receiving. According to Vibe, the megastar says Tidal is doing just fine .
“Taking to Twitter with #TidalFacts, a ‘stream of consciousness,’ Jay Z set out to clear the air about the Tidal wave. Assuring users that the service is ‘doing just fine,’ Hov shared that the service has over 700,000 subscribers, and that it aims to be around ‘for the long haul,’ by providing artists with higher royalty rates as well as other forms of entertainment for users. He also shared the company’s equity value in an effort to dispel that he and his partners are out to make the rich, richer.”
Jay-Z has not only put his reputation on the line, but has made such superstars as Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and his wife Beyoncé look bad. Certainly, one has to credit Jay-Z for trying to come up with a service that is beneficial to both the artists and music listeners, but the approach to Tidal appears to be have been flawed from the very start. Do you think Jay-Z can recover from the Tidal disaster? Let us know in the comments section.
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