Hello Danny, speaking as a journalist, that’s a bit of a caricature. Contrary to what an increasing amount of people seem to think, journalists are not random people who’ve walked into an office and been given a job. Certainly reporters for business publications tend to be quite qualified, although you are quite right in that they rarely have run a company themselves. Of course everyone can make a mistake - and business reporters are often targeted by sources who have their own agenda – you can be pretty sure this news about Tidal has its origin in Norway because the company still has some financial/business ties connected to its WiMP origin, for example. But also, don’t overestimate the business expertise present in companies themselves. I would not want to count the amount of high-level managers of very large companies I’ve spoken with throughout the years who would present unrealistic growth plans and show totally no affinity with their markets or even with their own company. Nonetheless, according to the bio their PA handed me beforehand, most of these people had extended business educations, up to MBA’s from very prestigious US universities. This is of course also a caricature (I’ve also met loads of managers who were very dedicated and knowledgeful).
I think Tidal is suffering from some very typical failures. It only pays lip service to the fact it’s an alternative to Spotify, but in reality there’s no real differentiation for the typical customer. There’s very little incentive to pay 19,99 instead of 9,99. The people who do pay more for the HiFi subscription don’t get a more personalized / specialized UX experience, for example (of course, we have Roon, but we are all part of a niche). Instead you open the Tidal app and are met with endless promotion for artists allied to the owners. And video… which is a thing a Tidal customer probably isn’t looking for (music & video is a big thing, but on other platforms. YouTube mainly). Once you get past that the library really isn’t that great. I often turn to Qobuz to listen to music that is just missing on Tidal. If it wasn’t for Roon, I wouldn’t bother with Tidal at all. (And even more damming is that Qobuz ends up offering the better experience, even though their apps are a shambles on some platforms, their added content is not great quality, and they can’t decided if they are a streaming service or a music download store).
All of this is very strange if you consider that a service like Tidal basically has a huge amount of data which it could use to improve its offering. Ok, Roon has the UX covered (but just for us audiophiles), but even in terms of acquisition of new music collections Tidal should be able to do more.
So, I’m not saying Tidal will go broke in six months, but I do think the company is in trouble. Contrary to Tesla, it currently does not have a product people really desire nor does it seem to have a strategy to create that desire. Say what you will about Tesla, but there are many, many people out there who want one of their cars. (Their obvious problem is their inability to ramp production, not the cashflow. Once companies as the VAG Group have retrofitted their existing production lines for electrical, which should be the case from 2019 onwards, Tesla’s will be competing with cheaper electrical cars delivered in a few weeks time – and companies who are good in fleet sales. Luckily, Tesla has invested strongly in battery production, so they’ll probably earn money anyway. ).