Jay-Z’s Relaunched Tidal To Benefit The Artists That Need It Least

Okay, let me get this straight. Jay-Z’s newly relaunched Tidal streaming music service is supposed to be special because it’s owned by the artists, right? If that’s the only benefit, then it won’t last very long, since the artists with the most to gain are the just the ones that don’t need any more help to begin with.

During the big rollout last night, there were numerous mentions of the ownership that the first group of artists have in Tidal (reported to be 3% of the company), but let’s look at what that means in terms of benefits to most recording artists and the people who seem to be forgotten in all of this - the potential users of the service.

First of all, the early “investors” in Tidal is a who’s who of A-list music stars like Madonna, Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Coldplay, Calvin Harris, Nikki Manaj, Rihanna and Jason Aldean, among others. There’s also supposed to be a second round of ownership available soon to other artists as well.

Here’s the $56 million (the amount payed by Jay-Z to acquire Aspiro, which ownsTidal) question. How does that benefit the potential end users of the service in any way? Do these artists really believe that most people will pay $20 a month for high-resolution audio content that they won’t already pay $10 for? Why would they even buy into the new standard-def $10 per month tier if they can get the songs they want on a free streaming tier of another service or on Youtube? Read more on Forbes.

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