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I doubt my ear buds could tell the difference between FLAC and 320kps
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People are not respecting the music, and [are] devaluing it and devaluing what it really means. People really feel like music is free, but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap, and it’s good water. But they’re OK paying for it. It’s just the mind-set right now.
pay for music? I haven't paid for music since the late 90s. I like Jay-Z and all but when he compared bottled water to music :roll eyes
We've established Tidal is to benefit artists, I'm lost as to how it benefits the consumer? They're just assuming everyone will follow their fav artist?
The launch event for the rapper's streaming service was a big mess
After its splashy launch press conference yesterday, the primary argument for Tidal—the two-tiered music service recently purchased by Jay Z that costs either $9.99 or $19.99 per month—is that artists deserve more money for their work. It’s not necessarily a wrongheaded argument, but the manner in which Jay Z and his contemporaries have pressed the point is embarrassingly out-of-touch.
There are real, systemic problems with current streaming services like Spotify, which stream music for free to listeners and distribute to artists a paltry fee drawn from advertising. That’s why Taylor Swift withdrew her hugely profitable catalog from the service last year. The argument Swift has been making is that music has inherent value; from her statements regarding Spotify to her op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, it’s a point she’s consistently made well. The argument Jay Z and his fellow stars at the Tidal launch (including Nicki Minaj, Madonna, and Beyoncé) are making is that they deserve to set the price point for their music. The supporting evidence for this claim? They want to set the price point for their music.
The rhetoric around Tidal was pretty funny, when it wasn’t embarrassing. A promotional video showed various celebrities gathering to discuss their master plan as Beyoncé, who would seem to know better, said “Every great movement started with a group of people being able to get together and really just make a stand.” From Seneca Falls, to Selma, to Stonewall, to Los Angeles, where a bunch of celebrities demanded that their fans give them more money—this country has such a rich history of protest movements.
Jokes aside, the celebrities at the Tidal launch press conference did a remarkably poor job of elucidating why the consumer accustomed to getting music for free should begin paying for it. In the age of Spotify, it is entirely legal to listen to music constantly and never spend money on it. Countering that fact with the moral claim that celebrities would prefer if you didn’t stream music for free only makes sense if you believe celebrities should get everything they want, one hundred percent of the time.
As for the rhetoric in the press conference that music is special and has a unique place in our culture: Music fans agree! That’s why they listen to music often, on services that provide that music for free. But rather than building a better system, Jay Z and friends have, so far, put their energy behind a product that’s more or less the same as Spotify, but more expensive. A product this pointless could, maybe, be sold as a charity case by artists who depend on every penny of fan support. But Jay Z, a rapper who wastes no opportunity to brag, on his records, about his business acumen, is not that figure. Based on the optics of the Tidal launch, his business acumen may have failed him this time.
We as a consumer always complain about how artist "sell out" or continue to make moves that are for popularity rather then the good of the music. Truth is most artist follow that path because they are trying to make money.
In general, I don't understand how or why Streaming is so big.
I mean, I get it, but I really don't comprehend why it's such a big business, and why it's projected to be an even bigger business moving forward.
Piracy is so huge man. From ripping songs off of soundcloud or youtube by simply copying and pasting their URL's, to a simple twitter search, or a simple sharebeast / zippyshare search on twitter, Piracy is huge, and not only huge it's easy as hell. It literally takes all of one minute to search for a link to Wale's new album on twitter right now and download it to my iTunes.
I'm a guy that still buys CD's, simply because I like collecting them. But with piracy so easy these days, I don't understand how or why people are willingly paying 10 dollars a month. Is the average fan that far behind the wave as far as illegally downloading songs and albums?
Also, I can't wrap my mind around Tidal selling itself as being this service that provides elite level quality music. Simply because, they couldn't believe that people would actually care enough about that to pay right? It looks like their plan is to court as many celebs as they can and hope that those celebs bring over with them their fans.
But like I said, I've never understood the streaming wave fully. I understand the purpose it serves, but I don't understand why has it been so successful.
This is a big part of it to me...why do we always try to tear other black folks down when they make moves? Not all black folks, but so many of us are on the plantation mentally to where we point and laugh at each other for doing big things. I don't see any other group doing that but us.I don't know if it's the pro black in me or what but it kinda rubs me the wrong way when I see our ppl come at Jay for his entrepreneurship.
Like JT or Ryan Seacrest is making a killing w multiple ventures, white guys don't knock them for their moves lol