Streaming giant TIDAL cuts 40 jobs, source confirms

Brantome

Brantome

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“The layoffs come as the US company shifts its primary focus away from music…”
”One anonymous source close to TIDAL told RA that this shows the company is making a clear shift from "being music-centric to product-centric–pushing tech initiatives instead of anything related to music, labels, distributors or artists."”

ra.co

Streaming giant TIDAL cuts 40 jobs, source confirms · News ⟋ RA

The layoffs come as the US company shifts its primary focus away from music.
ra.co ra.co

Wonder what this means in terms of its ongoing viability as a streaming service? Might be watch watching to see how this story plays out…
 
Yeah, but nothing to suggest their primary focus is shifting away from music as suggested in this article for Tidal…
 
Brantome said:
Yeah, but nothing to suggest their primary focus is shifting away from music as suggested in this article for Tidal…
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There primary focus is Spotify itself not music or they would offer to pay more to the people that create it. They want their technology in as many customers and products as possible nothing more. Music just helps them get there currently but I imagine you will see different content turning up before long.

Tidal looks to be moving towards the same goals. They have just overhauled their entire streaming system I am sure they are not about to pull the plug after that expenditure but stranger things have happened (Batgirl) . You just won’t see the same human curation they have had and likely look at other avenues to give content to users.
 
It’s only normal when business is booming you hire more when business not doing good you cut. This is not something new unless you been living under the rock.
 
I'm surprised Tidal has lasted as long as it has. It is a tiny almost insignificant part of the market.
 
My sympathy is more with the 280 workers that lost her jobs on a dockyard nearby. I guess most of the salespeople and IT anarchists from companies like Tidal or Spotify or whatever will fall softer and if qualified will find new jobs easier.
On the side of the dockyard the reason was simply the criminally cheap wages in many other countries. With the streaming companies I would simply point to mismanagement. And to most of us who steal the music for rates around 15 €/month. Whining about unfair payment for artists and changing the streaming service for 2 €/month price difference....
 
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Brantome said:
“The layoffs come as the US company shifts its primary focus away from music…”
”One anonymous source close to TIDAL told RA that this shows the company is making a clear shift from "being music-centric to product-centric–pushing tech initiatives instead of anything related to music, labels, distributors or artists."”

ra.co

Streaming giant TIDAL cuts 40 jobs, source confirms · News ⟋ RA

The layoffs come as the US company shifts its primary focus away from music.
ra.co ra.co

Wonder what this means in terms of its ongoing viability as a streaming service? Might be watch watching to see how this story plays out…
Click to expand...
I'm not sure Tidal can really be called a streaming giant. There are three streaming giants -- maybe four (YouTube including Music) -- and Tidal is nowhere near that height. The story could indicate that the strategy behind Jack Dorsey's buyout is beginning to take shape.

Hmmm...Tidal music streaming business to Harman?
 
Yes if you look at pie charts of the industry Tidal isn't even mentioned (they fall into the others slice which is around 2%) The importance of the company is distorted by audiophile obsessives. Tidal only provides CD quality streaming unless you pay for premium and MQA was snake oil nonsense. A third of the catalogue on Spotify is CD quality (thats all the new stuff bearing in mind there are phonograph cylinder recordings on Spotify if you really want that). The majority of the market doesn't really care about greater than CD quality. Given CD resolution is twice what the human ear is capable of hearing that's not surprising. I predict Tidal will not survive and will be absorbed into another streaming service at some point.
 
Freak Empire said:
Yes if you look at pie charts of the industry Tidal isn't even mentioned (they fall into the others slice which is around 2%) The importance of the company is distorted by audiophile obsessives. Tidal only provides CD quality streaming unless you pay for premium and MQA was snake oil nonsense. A third of the catalogue on Spotify is CD quality (thats all the new stuff bearing in mind there are phonograph cylinder recordings on Spotify if you really want that). The majority of the market doesn't really care about greater than CD quality. Given CD resolution is twice what the human ear is capable of hearing that's not surprising. I predict Tidal will not survive and will be absorbed into another streaming service at some point.
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I don’t see Qobuz mentioned anywhere either. Seems to me that the two individual market leaders are those with the worst sound quality which possibly indicates that the people subscribing to them are not particularly interested in that aspect of the streaming experience.
Also just for information Tidal Hifi (the higher tier) is available here for less than £6 which is therefore lower than probably all of the competition (apart from Apple Music which is £2 per month).
 
Yanto said:
I don’t see Qobuz mentioned anywhere either. Seems to me that the two individual market leaders are those with the worst sound quality which possibly indicates that the people subscribing to them are not particularly interested in that aspect of the streaming experience.
Also just for information Tidal Hifi (the higher tier) is available here for less than £6 which is therefore lower than probably all of the competition (apart from Apple Music which is £2 per month).
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Silent but anyway a veto from my side. Strictly subjective of course.
Amazon MHD with its indeed horrible UI fits my needs for sound quality absolutely. A lot more inconvenient to find a dedicated album, but possible 😉 even without an academic degree.
Apple Music hires fits my needs for (wired) headphone listening using the right equipment. And for nonsense Dolby fun even with their gimmick headphones.
(What I would miss is simply a Roon integration, but may be things there are in move.)
So my grief if only these two (what I expect sooner or later) will survive would be limited.
 
Most people stream on their phone. The idea Spotify sounds terrible is a myth. A third of files are CD quality
 
Freak Empire said:
Most people stream on their phone. The idea Spotify sounds terrible is a myth. A third of files are CD quality
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That backs up my statement that most of their subscribers then are not particularly fussy re sound quality.
Spotify sounds fine using a phone with earbuds etc.But really doesn’t on a home system. Just my opinion. I was led to believe that the max resolution on Spotify is a lossy aac 256kbps not really anywhere near cd quality. Apologies if that’s wrong.
It does have easily the most comprehensive library and user interface too.
 
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Like you, I don’t believe Spotify has any lossless CD quality files - first I’ve heard it claimed that it does in advance of their “hi res” offering
 
Brantome said:
Like you, I don’t believe Spotify has any lossless CD quality files - first I’ve heard it claimed that it does in advance of their “hi res” offering
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I’d really like to hear Spotify in 16/44.1 Lossless.
 
Would be one more well hidden secret how they manage to bring CD quality into their ogg format.
But they know so many supremium tricks 😉
 
Achim1811 said:
Says who?
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I have worked in the music industry for decades. Its a known fact. Not all spotify source files are poor quality and other than for golden eared audiophiles spotify premium 320kbs is indistinguisable from a CD for mere mortals.
 
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