"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.’"
Looks like Roon may soon support only one streaming service.
Block’s shareholders have had heartburn over Tidal from the go.
Spotify cutting deeper (but then a much bigger company)
What “products” does Tidal even sell??
Great question. I remember there was a lot of speculation about Jack Dorsey’s motivations for acquiring a failing streaming business in 2021:
TIDAL is owned by former Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s parent fin-tech company Block–now known as Square. Launched in 2009, the multinational conglomerate sells point-of-sale products and apps for processing electronic payments. Dorsey acquired TIDAL from US rap mogul Jay-Z for $297 million in 2021.
Maybe the Tidal “product” that Dorsey was interested in is the royalty settlement system with the labels, especially if it can be repurposed to support more lucrative business models than music streaming which doesn’t really seem to be working for anyone.
2 forgot KKBox , not very useful outside of Asia but there. For me it’s ZERO as Qobuz doesn’t cover South Africa , indeed Africa in general I think.
I must investigate devious ways of getting Apple Music into my system other than Airplay
It makes one wonder what potentially might going to happen to Qobuz, since they are an even smaller company with fewer subs than Tidal already has.
I’ve had it running in my living room by connecting my MacBook Air to a DAC and from there to my amp. Remote login from my iPad. Cumbersome indeed. I’ve dropped Apple Music in favor of Tidal/Qobuz. But now it’s down to Qobuz as I had already dropped Tidal.
I did pick up Spotify for a 3 month sub for 11 Euro. But not sure if I’ll stay with them. Might be better to reactivate Apple Music and use that next to Qobuz.
I did have Apple Music running by using a lightening cable from an old iPad Mini to my Audiolab M-DAC via USB it worked fine but what a lash up. I must get one of the dual power/lightening camera kits as the mini battery is a bit doubtful
My current streamer (Naim Uniti Atom HE) has no USB input , why should it it’s a streamer, it has coax and optical so I could use my old (unused M-DAC or unused CXN) as a “bridge” and run coax to the Naim. Or I could simply put up with Airplay 2 which my streamer supports.
Fortunately I stream very little but I would miss the Discography function of Roon which only works/shows when you have an active streaming service
It’s doable if a little messy but I am trying to beat @Jim_F as the minimalist , One Server NUC, One Streamer , several headphones finished. 
I use Apple Music on iPad Mini 6 with camera adapter, FiiO KA1 DAC and 3.5mm to Meridian Prime. From Meridian Prime I have RCA to Denon AVR-2805 and Pioneer HPM-60 speakers. SQ is very good. I can use iPhone Accessibility app to control the iPad to some extent.
Well I believe there are a handful of streamers with build in Apple Music app such as the Eversolo. That would work towards your minimalist approach. I’ll be sticking with my Cambridge set of equipment though. AirPray works, but sound quality wise it is less than ideal. The same thing can be said for Spotify. Spotify Connect is a lovely system, but Spotify’s mp3 quality sound is less lovely.
Ran it with MacBook Air connected to the USB input of my Loxjie D30 DAC. And the Loxjie connected through RCA to my Cambridge CXA81 amp.
I think the product is TIDAL (and TIDAL Connect), like Spotify wants you to use Spotify (and Spotify Connect). Let’s be optimistic and that the shift to a product centric TIDAL doesn’t mean dropping integration with 3rd parties like ROON too.
I assume the “shift away from music” means dropping all the TIDAL curated playlists (and personnel that makes them). A feature I would not miss, I have more fun with the computer (AI?) generated playlists like Daily Discovery, My Mix, My New Arrivals.
Exactly, I wouldn’t be too negative about this neither … Tidal is also seeing itself as a platform for Artists, whatever that means exactly, but I guess it’s still all about publishing and streaming music. It’s becoming more like Spotify.
And yes, this is what seems to happen, reading the RA article it looks very much like it’s the journalists/editors that are getting laid off. The Tidal magazine is / was actually high quality content, sad to see it go, same goes for the curated playlists. The algorithm based generated playlists are mostly terrible in my case, as much as everywhere else.
Tidals curated stuff was the best for me so that would be a shame to loose that side. I haven’t had it for over a year though. I think it’s safe or they would not have spent so much time and money switching over to flac from MQA if it was going away.
A quick search online for average Tidal salaries is interesting.
Not knowing if these figures I found are accurate or even true, a median of around $95,000 x 40 = $3.8m
Give or take a few $100k, this doesn’t seem a massive saving based on the last revenue figures, again if accurate and true.
This does show a loss for the Q3 period since 2021.
Plug the loss with a similar sized staff cut saving, and on paper it looks like it did back in 2021 
Ready for selling maybe.
As said by others, I see the product as Tidal, Tidal Connect. A model that could be built upon to be equivalent to Roon, maybe.
Eyes open on Qobuz now?
Others like Apple Music, well, losses there could be covered by revenues elsewhere in Apple, maybe .
My thoughts are that the next 12 months for us using Roon, Tidal and other services will be interesting.
For the music industry, the artists I think it is more worrying for.
I’m always surprised as to why music labels don’t create streaming services. Full subscription revenue goes to them.
From a music lovers perspective, the above could be all wrong as I’m not that well business minded in this industry.
Just food for thought.
Yes their curated stuff was really good. I wonder where this is leading.
Remember when Elon fired more than half the Twitter staff and it affected nothing?
Me too.
I think Spotify, Tidal, and others will follow suite.
I’ve done some more reading on this. Appears to be a move by Jack Dorsey (Block) to cut expenses and increase profit.
From the Block 3Q23 shareholder letter:
Moving on to our ecosystem of ecosystems, our focus is to create a dynamic where we are serving different audiences and use cases to increase our total addressable market and to create overall resilience. We are now serving sellers with Square, individuals with Cash App, developers with TBD, and musicians with TIDAL. We believe we can benefit each audience through connected financial tools, and that each business will positively reinforce each other over time.