Tidal Music: Jay-‐Z, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift Leave Spotify If you had the opportunity to experience unlimited access to Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Jay-‐Z through music, then you would you likely take it. Only there's one caveat, it'll cost ya. Jay-‐Z bought the music streaming service Tidal for $56 million dollars recently, and it is causing buzz all over the internet. Why Did Jay-‐Z Do This? Spotify, with 60 million users, is the current leader in the market. They also don't exactly have the greatest reputation among artists. Spotify provides a free streaming services, which is supportive through advertisements, which enables users to listen to their favorite music artists for free. What's worse, these artists don't see any of revenue as a result. Well now artists have had it and are jumping ship. In addition to Jay-‐Z, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift, other artists have come on board as owners. Some of the biggest names in music today include Calvin Harris, Nicki Minaj, Cold Play, Kanye, Madonna, Rihanna, Daft Punk, J-‐Cole and more, were all present to announce to the project during a press release in LA. What's So Special About Tidal? Users who subscript to the streaming service can expect to listen to all exclusive content for the artists who are on the site. Both Jay-‐Z and Taylor Swift have already removed some of their music catalogue to Tidal. Tidal also promises to deliver high quality audio, a feature that is rare on other free streaming services. So What's the Problem? While Tidal sounds good in theory, it has faced some backlash. For starters, users are expected to pay anywhere from $10 to $20 a month, just to hear this content. That is quite a pretty penny, and hardly seems worth it, when you can go to iTunes and purchases singles for .99 cents, or better yet, an entire album for $10 one time, as opposed to getting charged a $10 monthly fee. In addition, Tidal has done nothing support independent artists, who don't have the notoriety of being mainstream, or record label backing. These are really the people who could benefit from Tidal the most, yet they have not been included. All in all, it just sounds like the rich complaining about not being richer. But some companies are already following suit. YouTube has just announced that they are creating their own music streaming service, for a nominal fee of course. The jury is out on whether or not this will be a game changer. But we won't hold our breaths.
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