Tidal Pricing and the EU

Roon Software Discussion TIDAL
1

Hi,
In a recent (23rd December) article from John.Darko, he discusses the Tidal service tiers, as the FOC provision to reviewers has been ended.

In the article Tidal Hi-fi or Hi-fi Plus? It’s an easy choice! | Darko.Audio he discusses Tidal Plus at €13.99/month and Hifi at €7.49/month, and I thought hold-on, is that a promotional offer, but no that’s the price available to John in either Lisbon or Berlin, both EU countries.
For the last number of years, I have been paying €19.99/month for Hifi Plus (based in Ireland), and I know this tier is £19.99/month in the UK and $19.99/month in the US.

Tidal cannot provide a suitable explanation as to why the same Internet-based service, which has no physical deliverable element in any of these countries, has different pricing applied, just it uses your IP address to determine your location.
This is a service delivered over the Internet, there is no local Customer Support involving personnel etc. no data centres for each country, etc., unless they can explain what is different, but I have had 6 Email responses from Tidal and they haven’t been able to justify the differential pricing.

I understand why different prices for those countries using different currencies such as £, $, Yen etc. but would have expected an EU-wide price, as you get with Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Netflix, Paramount+, Disney, Qobuz, Roon etc.

So what are other EU-based forum members paying for Tidal Plus?
Any other regions?

Also, the UK is getting the worse deal here, as there never was £ to $ equivalency, € to £ parity existed briefly a few years ago, and is now back to a steady 0.85, certainly under 0.9 but above 0.8)

2

Google tells me the VAT rate in Ireland is 23%. In Germany it’s 19%. This could have a lot to do with the difference. Then there’s cost of living, Big Mac index, etc, etc… who knows :man_shrugging:

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3

I suppose they can charge whatever they want, wherever they want. Up until recently, I was paying $10.00 ($120 per year) for HiFi Plus in US for several years. It’s now $19.99, so I cut back to HiFi CD quality at $10.99 per month. There is no longer an annual payment option.

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4

I’ve dropped both Tidal and Apple Music. And I am now just going with annual subscriptions to Qobuz and Deezer. If you divide their annual cost by 12. Add the 2 of them up and then you will arrive at a very similar amount of money that Tidal charges here in the Netherlands for Tidal HiFi+ only. Which is 19,99 Euro.

As much as I like the Tidal/Qobuz integration with Roon. I’ll be sticking with the combination of Roon and Qobuz. And having Deezer as secondary service. Nicely priced. Everything they have is 16 bit 44.1 kHz FLAC and no MQA/hi-res FLAC drama. And Deezer sounds very good here as well.

At least both my streamers have apps that fully support both, next to being Roon Ready themselves.

5

I’m from Germany and Tidal is 10,99€/month for Hifi and 19,99€/month for HiFi Plus.

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6

Same here in the Netherlands.

7

Sounds like a USA only thing. Here in Europe we’ve never had an annual option with Tidal.

8

I just wanted to write this

9

Cars from EU manufacturers don’t cost the same in every EU country either, and it’s probably similar for many other things

10

I can understand cars and physical goods having per country pricing, as there are different import taxes and the requirement for in-country representation, warranty servicing etc which involves employment, for which costs are very different across the EU and the world.

But this is an internet service, no physical element here, so no requirement for pre country pricing, just major regions such as US in $, EU in €, UK in £, etc. And for once Brexit has nothing to do with this, as the UK had sovereignty of its currency before the Referendum (it was only a Referendum and not a Constitutional vote)

Amazon AWS doesn’t charge any differently for deployment into any of its EU Datacenters.

I have software deployed in several, for multi-site resilience.

11

But it’s not just that. It’s also what people are able/willing to pay. Pricing in free markets 101.

No requirement, but freedom to do so. Amazon AWS may not, others may.

One could even argue that for consumer goods, x% of disposable average income in a country is even more “fair”. But in the end, it’s more about what people are willing to pay. The average wage in Portugal was €20,430 in 2022. In Germany it was €45,457. so if the price was the same, then it would be twice as expensive for people in Portugal.

12

Just been provided with this

And this section

Price discrimination is not allowed

As an EU national, a trader cannot charge you more when you buy a product or service just because of your nationality or country of residence. Some price differences can be justified if they’re based on objective criteria and not just on nationality. For example, differing postage costs may mean you pay more for delivery in one country than in another. However, traders may still set different net sale prices in different points of sale, such as shops and websites, or may target specific offers only to a specific territory within a Member State. Under EU rules, all these offers must be accessible for consumers from other EU countries.

However, there is no possible justification for differences in access to goods or services for customers from different EU countries in the following three situations:

  • sale of goods without physical delivery – for example, if you buy something online that you will collect from a shop, rather than have it delivered to your home
  • sale of electronically supplied services (excluding copyright protected content) – such as cloud computing services, or website hosting
  • sale of services provided in a specific location – for example hotel bookings, car hire, tickets for entry to theme parks

Where a trader has several country versions of the same website, such as a webshop selling products to different countries across the EU, you should be able to choose to view which version you visit. You must give your permission to be redirected to a specific country version of the website. You should also be able to change your choice at any time.

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13

Tidal prices CHF13.90 (14.90€) vs CHF25.90 (27.80€) here in Switzerland. But we are used to be ripped off…

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14

Since we are talking about copyright protected content these rules seem moot.

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15

Tidal had a massive price increase across the board recently. Some up to 50% in some countries. (I know this is different to EU pricing differences in the EU)

Different countries have different economic. Some have a higher wage and some have a lower and prices are set according to it, the same as it is across the world.

How the EU sets its standard across all EU countries, I wouldn’t see it fair to charge all the same price.

16

There is much more to this. From what I can find, there is case law (there is an EU court ruling that allows certain divergence if the price difference does not distort competition) and allowed exceptions (apparently 12% are considered OK in practice). I’m also not sure if licensed streaming is a “product or service” and if Tidal is a “trader”.

I suppose Tidal has lawyers.

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17

Yes, I accept that if there was a physical element to the service. There are no Tidal employees or offices.

I would accept if there was a proxy server in Ireland to relay the streamed content to the limited number of subscribers here, but that I don’t believe is the case.

So why €13.99/month in Portugal and €19.99/month in Ireland? Tax rates are the same.

18

Because Tidal has the full intention to go broke in 2024 (I hope)

19

The average salary in Ireland was 52,971 euros per year in 2022,

according to Google. €20,430 in Portugal as mentioned above.

I don’t know if that’s legal under EU law, but it doesn’t seem particularly unfair, and it’s what anyone would do if it is in fact legal.

20

Why would you want them to go broke given that people will lose their jobs as a result?
Seems a bit unnecessarily spiteful.
Just don’t use them.

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