Tidal has built its name on being the music streaming service that artists can actually get paid by, because they offer no free tier so everybody gets paid every time they stream a song. It made a big splash when a group of the world’s richest people made a statement about how unfair it was that they weren’t getting paid. It’s important that artists get paid for their work, but it’s hard to be upset about Jay-Z not making even more money because somebody doesn’t pay to listen to Spotify.
But now Apple is apparently in talks to buy Tidal, which would be an interesting turn of events considering how they used to be the bad guys. Both companies have artist-friendly models though, which could go a long way toward getting the deal signed. It would be huge for Apple Music, helping to further solidify their place in the music industry, and those starving artists like Taylor Swift or Daft Punk that would likely get nice pay outs.
Would it make any difference to consumers? Probably not, unless artists started making their music exclusively available for streaming, and not sell their albums otherwise. Apple Music may not currently be streaming Taylor Swift, but you can buy her albums from the iTunes store. And if you aren’t a passionate fan of one of the few dozen major pop artists out there who work exclusively with Tidal or Apple Music (Spotify doesn’t want time with exclusive deals), then you aren’t gaining or losing anything one way or the other. If your taste in music runs to the more esoteric you probably aren’t relying on any of these services to listen to the music you want to anyway, so it won’t have a direct impact.
Will this business deal affect you?