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Square acquires majority of Tidal in $297M deal
- scribu 6y agoIs there any rhyme or reason to Square's moves in recent months? First doubling down on Bitcoin, now a music streaming service. What next?
- hasmolo 6y agoi think the value add is square adding financial tools for artist payout, but it's more just jack wanted it and jay-z is a buddy so...
- kjakm 6y agoCan anybody explain how this makes sense for Square? Square + Tidal seems like a bizarre combination with neither benefiting in any significant way from being owned by the same company.
- whalesalad 6y agoChances are it’s something we cannot see. Technology, people, an existing deal or relationship with someone Square wants to be close to.
- kyriee 6y agoIn some places, you need to pay rights to play music in your store. As Square has a great number of business customers, it might be an easy upsell. Like get paid and provide a great ambiance? Could also be a play to help reframe how people think of Square and be able to expand in other categories SMBs might need.
- goodoldneon 6y agoThat's a great point I hadn't thought of. For example, small coffee shops play music on Spotify. IANAL, but I assume that's technically illegal, though no one will sue a tiny coffee shop over that. But once you start expanding to multiple shops, you may want to get more "legitimate". You already have Square, so now you can just add the Tidal service to your bill
- ebiester 6y agoThe cost is less Tidal and more the Ascap and BMI licensing. It looks like there are companies who will bundle the cost of licensing into your monthly fee, though.
- dylan604 6y ago>In some places, Some? Can you please tell me about where you legally/legitimately can perform recorded music in a public place for public consumption without "permission"?
- vineyardmike 6y agoI can't speak to the legality, but i've seen countless places (retail shops, restuarants, etc) where they were playing radio over the speakers. Also, i've seen playing over spotify.
- dylan604 6y agoAs have I, and every one of those are breaking ASCAP/BMI licensing. A lot of stores subscribe to "in-store" networks, and that subscription covers these licensing fees. Using someone's iDevice with their Spotify/whatever app even if it is paid for is NOT a license for public performances. You (royal you) can disagree with it, but it is what it is. If it is usually the smaller places that feel the proper licensing is too expensive, but will be floored when they get popped.
- bogomipz 6y agoPure speculation, but I think there might be a play for Square to get into the concert merchandise business. The merch booth at shows always has vinyl and CDs for sale. Most people no longer have the latter and vinyl is a much smaller market compared to streaming. I think a merchandise vendor who could provide exclusive releases to attendees in addition to handling payment processing might be very attractive to artists.
- skc 6y agoAnd Jay-Z happens to be the founder of RocNation, a quietly successful artist/athlete management concern. A lot of dots can connect here.
- gowld 6y agoWhy does a search engine have a music company? Why does a premium hardware company and OS company have a music company? Why does a retail store have a music company? It's conglomeracy and the theory of the firm. Mergers are efficient.
- nemothekid 6y ago>Can anybody explain how this makes sense for Square? I think the next frontier in fintech is getting in every payment rail imaginable. The music part isn't relevant, it's the payment of artists that Square is most likely interested in. Square wants to process your deposit right into your CashApp bank account and pay for your records with the CashApp card.
- BLanen 6y agoDorsey giving money to friends.
- offby37years 6y agoJack and Jay-Z are pals. Jack is just another milquetoast SV CEO, but loves to surround himself with actual celebrities. This appears to be all but a sycophantic move to maintain his friend circle. It makes zero business sense.
- pityJuke 6y agoIs this just because Jack Dorsey likes Jay-Z or what? I can't imagine what acquiring a niche streaming service is going to achieve for Square
- tibbydudeza 6y agoMaybe he wants invites to those cool rap parties as reported by TMZ.
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- ASpaceCowboi 6y agoIm gonna throw my speculation, is it to attempt to implement a crypto method of payment to musicians through Tidal?
- rPlayer6554 6y agoWouldn't it be interesting if you had a free streaming service but you had to down a program that mined crypto on your machine? It might also be a brave-like service where you can either buy Dorsey dollaroos (what I assume the logical name for a new crypto by square would be) or click on ads, then use the dollaroos to buy streams.
- iamacyborg 6y ago> Wouldn't it be interesting if you had a free streaming service but you had to down a program that mined crypto on your machine? Absolutely not
- willtim 6y agoI am thinking of moving to Tidal. The Spotify sound quality is awful for Classical music with their compression/processing unable to deal with complex passages. The Android app also upsamples everything to 48KHz and has occasional random audio glitches. Hopefully Tidal is better.
- kjakm 6y agoSpotify have announced a 'HiFi' service coming later this year. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/five-things-to-know-about-spotify-hifi/ https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/five-things-to-know-...
- leetcrew 6y agowhy tidal is particular? as far as I can tell, amazon music HD is the same thing for substantially less money.
- willtim 6y agoThe marketing for this one hasn't reached me yet. Thanks for the recommendation. EDIT: looks like Amazon HD might force re-sampling of 44.1KHz to 48KHz on Android, which is a shame if true.
- leetcrew 6y agounfortunately, I don't think any of the streaming services offer the same level of control and confidence as something like foobar2000 with a local library. when I was originally shopping for a streaming service, I found it very frustrating to figure out all the technical details. they don't make this information at all easy to find, and even if they do, it's hard to trust that something weird doesn't happen under the hood on some devices. my main use case for streaming is android auto, so I lowered my criteria to "no lossy-lossy reencode for bluetooth and works well with google assistant". so yt music was basically the only option for me. I would have tried amazon HD, but apparently google has deliberately made it hard to use with assistant, which hamstrings it for music in the car.
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- jariel 6y agoThis is a bizarre, seems like there is a personal issue here and perhaps the board should have a look at this? This is one of the areas that CEOs seem to have a lot of opportunity for odd behaviour, what with Benioff spending billions of his companies money on companies that he has invested in etc..
- cbm-vic-20 6y agoI was thinking of switching from Google Play Music (er, Youtube Music) to Tidal; I'm going to wait to see how this plays out.
- hackeraccount 6y agoTidal is an also ran. Jay-Z made the right call here. Jack Dorsey not so much.
- newbie578 6y agoHonest question, how is Jack Dorsey (and Elon Musk) able to be a CEO of two different companies? His time and capabilities are halved, while the stress and responsibilities are doubled. How does the board approve of something like that even?
- vagrantJin 6y agoNo one cares as long as the money is rolling in. Dorsey and Musk have enough star power to get shit done, raise significant cash and attract talent. So the board supposedly just shrugs at the half-assed CEO situation.
- chokeartist 6y agoThat is human nature. No one cares until the crisis is knocking at the door. Also I chuckle at the people who think Twitter and Tesla CEOs are "similar". They are not. Musk will still be here in 10 years rolling and controlling. I'm not so sure about Jack.
- shp0ngle 6y agoIs money rolling in though? Aren’t both Square and Twitter losing money?
- count 6y agoSquare is printing money, and is actually profitable. Twitter is spending way more than Square is making though, and is not profitable.
- missedthecue 6y agoTwitter made several hundred million in net profit last quarter
- granzymes 6y agoAnd had net income of -985 million for the year, mainly driven by a realization in Q2.
- newhouseb 6y agoThis article (currently) leaves out a detail mentioned by Jack in his tweetstorm about this [1]: > [Jay-Z] will now help lead our entire company, including Seller and the Cash App, as soon as the deal closes. Does this read as Jay-Z having an... operational role? I know Jack's leadership of Square and Twitter is fairly non-traditional but this was surprising to read. [1] https://twitter.com/jack/status/1367460921937817602 https://twitter.com/jack/status/1367460921937817602
- goatherders 6y agoWhy? He's an accomplished businessman having built a number of successful brands.
- beaconstudios 6y agoI guess it's odd for a music and branding mogul to take on an operational role at a payment processing company, in the same way it'd be odd if Patrick Collison started a label and dropped a rap album.
- flycaliguy 6y agoOdd but reminds me of Ryan Reynolds role at Mint Mobile. Marketing and operational roles merged. Basically when marketing is the crucial next step, your celebrity wants a big stake.
- beaconstudios 6y agoit's fascinating. I think we're watching hyperreality take on a new aspect in real time.
- GormanFletcher 6y agoIt's certainly striking, but the world is full of surprises like that. Goldman Sachs' CEO is an EDM DJ with 550,000 monthly Spotify listeners. He performs at nighclubs and music festivals, gets plays on Sirius XM, and his tracks chart on Billboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Solomon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Solomon
- tibbydudeza 6y agoWhy ???.
- simonsarris 6y agoRemember, Square has a stake in Eventbrite. They now have a stake in the full ecosystem of music artists: Streaming, performances, and soon merch, of course. It's a side ecosystem just like restaurants (Square has had a stake in Doordash after selling Caviar to them). Today, Square for Restaurants also released in Canada. As a SQ investor I'm not crazy about this play but I see the long term reasoning. I also think JAY-Z might help with Cash App although its booming on its own and very much has the rapper demographic already (there are no shortage of songs and albums named Cash App for a reason).
- xivzgrev 6y agoCurious why does square want a stake in the ecosystem of music artists? Even eventbrite didn’t need square readers, people mostly buy their tickets in advance. Maybe it’s for event organizers to upsell at the event to attendees? Maybe this is a play to demonstrate investment in black community, as someone else mentioned?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- blackearl 6y agoEveryone would be elated if they decided to take on ticketmaster, though I believe TM has exclusive deals with most venues.
- bnjms 6y agoTicketmaster has worked themselves into a bad position. There is a subset of people who hate them. If square could get the sort of after purchase fees that that Ticketmaster charges legislated so they have to be shown up front and named in non deceiving ways it would go a long way to weakening my Ticketmaster and LiveNation’s position.
- metamet 6y ago> There is a subset of people who hate them. I'm curious about that, because everyone I know that has had to pay the Ticketmaster tax hates them. Many artists are vocal about their hate as well. I assume there's a reason venues continue to use them exclusively, which makes me think Ticketmaster's grasp on the industry is fragile enough that it'll break once there's enough momentum behind an alternative.
- hudo 6y agoArtists-owned streaming company so musicians gets bigger share of the cake. That didn't last long. Was ever Tidal the best for the artisys!?
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoThe former American national soccer team manager, Bruce Arena, once was famously quoted describing a scrappy player, Clint Dempsey, with the phrase, “He tried shit.” Meaning - it was sometimes weird, didn’t always work, but he went for it and took risks. You can think what you want about this deal, but Dorsey is similar. It reminds me of Amazon in a lot of ways. They will absolutely try anything, no matter how weird. Some start-up delivers tacos by drones? The next week Amazon has a whole new AWS managed service to deliver tacos by drones, and shuts it down the next year. If there is any business out there right now that has some potential to be the Amazon of consumer finance, it is Cash App. Obviously the chances any business could do that are low. It’s by no means a clear path to success, but you at least have to admire Square for trying weird shit and being willing to do anything to see what works.
- pfraze 6y agoI generally agree, and the question I have for Jack’s leadership is, does he like to win or does he hate losing? If it’s the latter, he’ll have the follow through to make these risks pay off.
- untilHellbanned 6y agoNFT. Enough said.
- admeyer 6y agoAgreed. Jack is getting ahead of the coming NFT craze. He will be there to sell shovels to artists just like Coinbase sells shovels to Bitcoiners.
- ChrisArchitect 6y agohate that this makes Jay-Z look like some kind of genius business guy to market people because he got an exit, when Tidal was an 'also-ran' as someone else said, and like never had any impact/users from the start no idea how it held on this long, even in the beginning seemed like ridiculous thing to start up and chance of artists flocking to it or it become dominant against apple and spotify etc was next to zero
- rchaud 6y agoStrange comment. Should people not start a business because competitors exist? Not to mention this is hardly Jay-Z's first exit. He sold his clothing brand Rocawear sometime in the 2000s and as the article says, he sold a luxury booze brand as well.
- ChrisArchitect 6y agoregularly see comments "who tf uses Tidal" "never heard anyone ever say they use Tidal" When it launched it was marked "DOA" and everyone said we didn't need another streaming service (even if Spotify was yet to really take off, but did eventually) A few ppl use it for FLAC quality streams and under some impression the service pays artists more because the launch board was all top gross artists on a stage. But within a few years all these reports came out about falsified stream numbers / inaccurate etc for Beyonce and Kayne releases. bah
- twobitshifter 6y agoWhen Sprint invested $200M for a 33% share they had about 1 Million subscribers in 2017. https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7662726/tidal-sprint-deal-future https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7662726/tidal-sp... Not sure why NYTimes said this was undisclosed. This would give revenues of approximately $240M a year generously assuming everyone is on the HiFi plan. I haven’t been able to find more recent subscription numbers. Was Sprint able to push Tidal to their customer base?
- dagorenouf 6y agoI do not see the genius of this move.
- bluedevil2k 6y agoPerhaps great irony, in the "Other Tweets" section below Jack's tweets I see this one from Paul Graham - "When startups are doing well, their investor updates are short and full of numbers. When they're not, their updates are long and mostly words."
- ancharm 6y agoWhats the % chance they start to lay the initial ideas down for a decentralized music ecosystem?
- buildawesome 6y ago0%
- jasonvorhe 6y agoNow Square just has to also purchase Bandcamp and offer to directly include your purchases (for music that isn't in the streaming service's library already) to your Tidal library after buying it on Bandcamp. And then fill the void left by the shutdown of Google Play Music and YouTube Music's sub-par "upload your own music"-feature.
- exacube 6y agoTIDAL isn't getting traction & Jay-Z wants to sell it <=> Square needs a hook into the rap industry because they market really well there. Square has been paying rappers to promote Cashapp since 2018. Here's an article written 1 year ago about the Cashapp's traction with the hip hop community: https://trapital.co/2020/03/18/how-hip-hop-helped-cash-app-grow-faster/ https://trapital.co/2020/03/18/how-hip-hop-helped-cash-app-g... An excerpt: Here’s Square CEO Jack Dorsey at a 2019 investor conference via Wall Street Journal: “This is also something we weren’t expecting, but I think Cash App has touched in the culture. We’ve just benefited from people loving it and wanting to sing about it, and putting it in their music videos, and it’s amazing how much that spreads.”
- aparashk 6y agoI fear there is a consolidation coming up for the music streaming services. Smaller companies like TIDAL will find it difficult to compete with Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Google. As an avid TIDAL user I wish them well in their new "home".