How To Cope If Tidal Does Go Under?

[exdmd]

Why obsess about a potential problem that may not occur? There is always Deezer and Quobuz.

[Brinkman Ship]

38 minutes ago, exdmd said:

Why obsess about a potential problem that may not occur? There is always Deezer and Quobuz.

Because when you buy into a rental economy, and your content has been given to you for an unsustainable price, it can be a bummer if that goes away. Not investing in a local digital library buy ripping purchased CDs and not buying downloads is a mistake I think many made. 

[left channel]

9 hours ago, TubeLover said:

I seem to recall a number of CA members here in the US finding ways to access Qbuzz. How can one make that work?

 

They'll probably launch officially in the US by the fall. Meanwhile, you can do this:

 

If you've been to their website before, first clear your browser cookies and cache. Then VPN to a UK server, go to https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription (scroll down to see the pricing tiers), sign up using PayPal (to avoid forex fees or entering an address), download the desktop app (unless you'll be only mobile), then log off VPN.

 

Now you can use the app from anywhere. You download iOS and Android apps directly from the respective stores. Speaking of which, both Tidal and Qobuz are well integrated into USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP) for Android.

[Brinkman Ship]

This situation really reminds me of when I was growing up I had friends who did not purchase much music because it was the glory days of FM radio and they had one or two favorite stations that played what they liked 24/7. As usual, there were stations that were bought out, and shifted direction and these guys were left without any source of music...they started buying records and tapes....

[left channel]

11 hours ago, sdolezalek said:

It surprises me that Tidal has done so little with variable pricing.

<snip>

There are a lot of ways hi-res streaming can be priced more creatively than it has been. 

<snip>

 

Like this?  https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription

 

[left channel]

Just for the record, I subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz for now.

The rest of my family is on Apple Music and Spotify, and couldn't care less.

[left channel]

35 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

This situation really reminds me of when I was growing up I had friends who did not purchase much music because it was the glory days of FM radio and they had one or two favorite stations that played what they liked 24/7. As usual, there were stations that were bought out, and shifted direction and these guys were left without any source of music...they started buying records and tapes....

 

Ah yes, I can still hear Alison Steele, the Nightbird, flying until dawn on WNEW-FM. These days, for all my tinkering with Tidal and Qobuz on LMS, UAPP, and other initials, I mostly listen to (and support!) the Radio Paradise internet radio stream, and sometimes SomaFM. Also the KCSM stream. If we lost all the big streaming services, I'd probably do more of that before buying music.

[Boy Howdy]

I got into Quobuz a few years ago which involved contacting them and letting them set things up from their side. Selection was pretty good although not even close to what Tidal is doing.  Quobuz had lots of streaming issues and after a few months of really unresponsive customer service and ineffective technical support, they just cut me off and stopped responding at all.  I had just paid them for the next month of service, too.  They just went deaf and dumb.  

 

Gotta say I’m not very excited about doing business with them again...

Mike

[Brinkman Ship]

3 minutes ago, left channel said:

 

Ah yes, I can still hear Alison Steele, the Nightbird, flying until dawn on WNEW-FM. These days, for all my tinkering with Tidal and Qobuz on LMS, UAPP, and other initials, I mostly listen to (and support!) the Radio Paradise internet radio stream, and sometimes SomaFM. Also the KCSM stream. If we lost all the big streaming services, I'd probably do more of that before buying music.

Oh, man same here...WNEW..Scott Muni...and WLIR...i was REALLY bummed when they folded. They were my Tidal of the day.

[left channel]

Just now, Boy Howdy said:

I got into Quobuz a few years ago which involved contacting them and letting them set things up from their side. Selection was pretty good although not even close to what Tidal is doing.  Quobuz had lots of streaming issues and after a few months of really unresponsive customer service and ineffective technical support, they just cut me off and stopped responding at all.  I had just paid them for the next month of service, too.  They just went deaf and dumb.  

 

Gotta say I’m not very excited about doing business with them again...

Mike

 

Was that before the new ownership and reorg? I've had not a single problem with their streaming, in marked contrast to my experience with Tidal. I haven't purchased downloads from them, so can't comment on that.

[psjug]

29 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Because when you buy into a rental economy, and your content has been given to you for an unsustainable price, it can be a bummer if that goes away. Not investing in a local digital library buy ripping purchased CDs and not buying downloads is a mistake I think many made. 

I can't see it as a mistake.  You can always buy any music that you lose access to.  Anyway it's hard to imagine all the services going away.  And  $10/mo or $20/mo doesn't really register in my family budget - health insurance is $1700/mo - and that's for a crummy bronze plan!

[left channel]

The Qobuz Hi-Res tier certainly eats more into the health insurance budget for sure. But that price structure is also what may be allowing them to project being cash-positive in just a few years. 

 

Actually I think their biggest challenge in the USA will be getting people to spell the dang name right. It's Qobuz, peeps. :-)

[Brinkman Ship]

10 minutes ago, psjug said:

I can't see it as a mistake.  You can always buy any music that you lose access to.  Anyway it's hard to imagine all the services going away.  And  $10/mo or $20/mo doesn't really register in my family budget - health insurance is $1700/mo - and that's for a crummy bronze plan!

..you can always buy the music..as long as it is available...but I hear you...

[sdolezalek]

2 hours ago, left channel said:

 

Like this?  https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription

 

 

That's the easy and obvious part. So yes, BUT...  How about also offering me subscriptions to different genres.  I might only want Jazz and Classical and be willing to pay 75% of what I pay for everything just for those two categories.  How much is Tidal paying others by giving me access to the whole catalog when I only use a bit of it?  How about charging me for the total number of files I have "favorited" so they show up in Roon?  Why should someone with 2,000 files pay the same as someone with 500 files? 

 

Put differently, if Tidal was $100 per month and these "lesser" choices were available for $50, $25 or $15/month, wouldn't you want that choice?  To my mind, the streaming companies are leaving revenue on the table because, so far, their investors haven't forced them to be profitable.  They are pursuing the early Amazon model: control the market, be willing to lose on every sale. Then, when you have them hooked and the competition is gone, increase prices slowly to become profitable...

[left channel]

6 minutes ago, sdolezalek said:

 

That's the easy and obvious part. So yes, BUT...  How about also offering me subscriptions to different genres.  I might only want Jazz and Classical and be willing to pay 75% of what I pay for everything just for those two categories.  How much is Tidal paying others by giving me access to the whole catalog when I only use a bit of it?  How about charging me for the total number of files I have "favorited" so they show up in Roon?  Why should someone with 2,000 files pay the same as someone with 500 files? 

 

Put differently, if Tidal was $100 per month and these "lesser" choices were available for $50, $25 or $15/month, wouldn't you want that choice?  To my mind, the streaming companies are leaving revenue on the table because, so far, their investors haven't forced them to be profitable.  They are pursuing the early Amazon model: control the market, be willing to lose on every sale. Then, when you have them hooked and the competition is gone, increase prices slowly to become profitable...

 

They're having the same conversation in cable TV world: if things went "a la carte", would that improve or endanger prospects for channels with smaller audiences? In the music world would this mean a windfall for hip hop, while jazz takes temporary refuge in endangered nonprofit internet radio streams? 

[psjug]

17 minutes ago, sdolezalek said:

 

That's the easy and obvious part. So yes, BUT...  How about also offering me subscriptions to different genres.  I might only want Jazz and Classical and be willing to pay 75% of what I pay for everything just for those two categories.  How much is Tidal paying others by giving me access to the whole catalog when I only use a bit of it?  How about charging me for the total number of files I have "favorited" so they show up in Roon?  Why should someone with 2,000 files pay the same as someone with 500 files? 

 

Put differently, if Tidal was $100 per month and these "lesser" choices were available for $50, $25 or $15/month, wouldn't you want that choice?  To my mind, the streaming companies are leaving revenue on the table because, so far, their investors haven't forced them to be profitable.  They are pursuing the early Amazon model: control the market, be willing to lose on every sale. Then, when you have them hooked and the competition is gone, increase prices slowly to become profitable...

It would complicate payouts since then there would be different subscription pools.  Then if payouts were from various pools instead of a single pool agreements would have to be renegotiated.

[bobbmd]

@Brinkman Ship@left channel Ah yes and pete fornatale and vin scelsa denis elsas etc

FYI you can still listen to them(pete and vin) on Fordham University's NPR station WFUV   under archives for 'idiots delight' and 'mixed bag' and you can listen to the nightbird at the paley center for media in nyc and probably all the other WNEW dj's also and there are a lot uTube selections including fornatale's obituary/funeral and vin's farewell party- do you two think there is ANYPLACE that saved whole show recordings of vin/pete/alison other than what I mentioned above especially the later 'idiots delight' from sirius xm?

As far as TIDAL goes I would miss it terribly and what would happen to ROON? BUT... I still have Qobuz and A+3 and I just don't think TIDAL will pass on-OMG all my hundreds of playlists where would they go??

[left channel]

@bobbmd there's a way to download your playlists as xml files. I'm sure someone here can point you to the instructions.

 

And yes, they are still with us...

 

[Brinkman Ship]

48 minutes ago, bobbmd said:

@Brinkman Ship@left channel Ah yes and pete fornatale and vin scelsa denis elsas etc

FYI you can still listen to them(pete and vin) on Fordham University's NPR station WFMU   under archives for 'idiots delight' and 'mixed bag' and you can listen to the nightbird at the paley center for media in nyc and probably all the other WNEW dj's also and there are a lot uTube selections including fornatale's obituary/funeral and vin's farewell party- do you two think there is ANYPLACE that saved whole show recordings of vin/pete/alison other than what I mentioned above especially the later 'idiots delight' from sirius xm?

As far as TIDAL goes I would miss it terribly and what would happen to ROON? BUT... I still have Qobuz and A+3 and I just don't think TIDAL will pass on-OMG all my hundreds of playlists where would they go??

Wow, those were all my favorite DJs. Icons.  Thanks for the tip. I remember when WFUV started streaming live on the internet, at a low bit rate, I thought that was amazing at the time.

[TubeLover]

On 5/19/2018 at 10:26 AM, exdmd said:

Why obsess about a potential problem that may not occur? There is always Deezer and Quobuz.

There are no guarantees for either. 

 

JC

[Musicophile]

Well, actually we all survived quite well without lossless streaming for decades. 

 

I must say I wouldn’t want to go back to a world without it, and worse case I’ll just sign up to a lossy streaming service. 

I’m quite positive these will survive even if if the basic economics don’t work out as they’ll be kept artificially alive by companies like Amazon or Apple that use these as loss leaders to sell us other stuff. 

 

That said, I’d strongly encourage every music lover to actually continue to buy music that you care about as well, because I don’t think any non Top25 artist will ever be able to pay their rent on streaming revenues. 

[bobbmd]

@Brinkman Ship@left channel Thank you both and I am glad you enjoyed the info and I

enjoyed what you sent me.

WFUV is available on ROON Internet Radio and sound really good as do most of their other stations and Denis Elsas still has a weekly show and I think the Catholic Mass on Sunday is in LATIN!

I came across on ROON /TIDAL and Qobuz a series of albums The Bottom Line Archives Series one is the 20th Anniversary with Vin Scelsa hosting Kris Kristofferson and Lou Reed.

I agree there if TIDAL folds there is Deezer and Spotify plus in addition to putting playlists on xml files you could use Sounddiz.

[R1200CL]

Roon is developing a stand alone mobile version. No PC required. Meaning you may not even need the Tidal app to access Tidal when not home. Everything available in Roon. 

 

So let’s say that Tidal gets into deep shit and have to reduce almost all staff and it’s  editors, we may see that Roon can continue to access the music files and we are all good. 

 

So what about all those Tidal HiFi subscribers that don’t have Roon ?

They may not pay a Roon lifetime subscription, nor an additional yearly subscription.

So maybe the Roon mobile will be a free or very reasonable priced app. And Tidal will eventually merge into Roon. 

 

And the Roon version that we know today will still exist, as you get more benefits with Roon as we know it today. 

 

I’m not so concerned about the future yet. 

 

What I have found a bit strange is that the other streaming services won’t let Roon access their databases. At least that is my understanding.

 

As I taught Roon could be a front end for any streaming service. 

 

 

[wushuliu]

On 5/17/2018 at 1:53 PM, Brinkman Ship said:

I did not mean that Tidal or any streaming service controls your content, but if they disappear, or change the terms, or exclude certain artists, your library disappears or is severely impacted. Not for me.

 

 

There you go. And this applies to movies as well. Soooo many people hypnotized by convenience technology, they don't stop to think about the finite nature of rights, licensing, and yes, service. I am slowly stockpiling CDs because they cost only a few bucks now. Soon they will go through a resurgence, especially as titles go out of print or licensed to a specific service. We all know how this story goes, but we whistle past the graveyard.

[wushuliu]

On 5/19/2018 at 11:11 AM, sdolezalek said:

To my mind, the streaming companies are leaving revenue on the table because, so far, their investors haven't forced them to be profitable.  They are pursuing the early Amazon model: control the market, be willing to lose on every sale. Then, when you have them hooked and the competition is gone, increase prices slowly to become profitable...

 

Really? I thought the model was to get enough subscribers and a brand presence large enough to get bought out for $$$$.