Adam Kos Tidal wants to step up its efforts to fight against players like Apple Music and Spotify. That's why the music streaming platform has announced the launch of its first-ever free plan and two new HiFi tiers, along with new ways to pay artists. It is a sympathetic effort, but the question is whether it will be of any use.
In a press release Tidal has announced its new free tier, but it's only available in the United States for now. However, in exchange for a free listen, it will play ads to listeners, but in return it will offer them access to the platform's entire music catalog and playlists. Two new plans have also been added for the most demanding listeners, i.e. Tidal HiFi and Tidal HiFi Plus, when the first costs $9,99 and the second costs $19,99 per month.
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The Tidal platform is characterized by sound quality, for which it also wants to pay artists appropriately, therefore it also launches direct payments to artists. The company explains that each month, a percentage of HiFi Plus subscribers' membership fees will go towards their top-streamed artist they see in their activity feed. This payment directly to the artist will be added to their streaming royalties.
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Tidal offers you a 30-day free trial, after which you pay CZK 149 per month. But if you feel like listening to a higher quality, you can have Tidal HiFi in quality 1411 kbps for a trial period of 3 months for CZK 10 per month, HiFi Plus in quality 2304 to 9216 kbps again for three months for CZK 20 per month. So you can clearly try out what the advantages of the network are. Obviously, the new free plan clearly goes against Spotify, which also offers it with numerous restrictions and advertising. In contrast, Apple Music offers no ads and free listening outside of the trial period.
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Pavel Jelic Whether this move by Tidal makes sense is not entirely clear. If the platform is profiled as one for demanding listeners, precisely because of the quality of its stream, why would you want to listen to ads at 160 kbps quality? If Tidal's goal was to attract listeners who would subsequently start subscribing to the service, it will certainly not succeed by broadcasting advertising. But it is true that competition is extremely important and it is only good that Tidal (and others) are here. However, it is impossible to say with certainty whether this news will have an impact on the market.
