When Jay-Z launched Tidal, his very own music streaming service that was openly supported by music giants like Madonna, Kanye West, and Usher, they made huge waves that made people wonder if it really was going to grow big. The launch, which happened in April of this year, also created a string of reactions from people both from within and outside the music industry, with other big names in the business saying that they do not agree with what the rap icon is trying to do. Despite the differences in opinion, Tidal moved on and did everything it could to go against the competition.

The Facts versus Jay-Z

Fast forward to today, and it seems that Tidal is not exactly showing the kind of growth that they had anticipated. Jay-Z tweeted that they were doing just fine, saying that they have only been in business for a month and have already acquired over 770,000 subscriptions. Despite the rapper’s confident tweet however, it seems that the facts are actually against him. For one thing, Tidal has actually been around since 2014. He also acquired it in early 2015. The tweet he sent out was in April 27. It is possible however, that he was only counting from the time that the app had its grand launch, which is less than a month since the tweet was sent.

 But then another fact proves his tweet wrong. According to Billboard, Tidal had only 540,000 subscribers, which means that either Jay-Z does not have his facts straight, or is subscribers are starting to leave.

Why Tidal Could Be Failing

It actually seems as if the entire process of breaking out of the mold is not necessarily a good idea all the time. Because where other popular music streaming services like YouTube or SoundCloud, Tidal has decided to go against the flow and offer their services ONLY to paid subscribers. This is the huge difference between Tidal and SoundCloud, which has 175 million active users to date, or Spotify, which has over 60 million active users on top of the 15 million paid users that they have.

It doesn’t help that other important names in the music industry have spoken up against the service. Ben Gibbard, frontman for Death Cab for Cutie, admitted that if he had been in Jay-Z’s shoes, he would have brought out independent and underground artists during the launch instead of big music stars. This would allow people to understand how helpful their money really is when they subscribe to the service, as these are the artists that need the most support – it’s not the artist who has had countless albums and millions in sales.

As for Tidal, they continue to march forward despite obvious signs that they have been failing miserably in  the past couple of months. They have been campaigning about exclusive concerts only for their subscribers, so that’s something that could (or could not) entice a few more people in.

So the moment you step into stores that sell electronics and think about the first few apps you’re going to download, would you find yourself thinking about trying Tidal out, or would it seem as a failure that you shouldn’t even be bothering yourself with?