Tidal Already Drops Off iTunes' Top App Charts

BY Josiah HughesPublished Apr 21, 2015

Though it made waves with a big splash last month, Jay Z's streaming service Tidal appears to be crashing in a major way, as it's been drowned out by the competition in the iTunes app store. 

As BGR reports [via Jezebel], Tidal is no longer one of the top 700 apps in the American version of the Apple App Store. It's also dropped out of the top 500 in Canada. 

When it first launched, Tidal promised to offer better payouts to artists along with its higher quality audio file streaming. In doing so, however, BGR argues that the attacks actually boosted the profiles of cheaper services like Spotify and Pandora, which are both among the top four apps in America right now.

This follows news from Friday (April 17) that saw Tidal lay off 25 employees, including its founding CEO Andy Chen. According to Business Insider, a memo from the company said, "We've eliminated a handful of positions and refocused our company-wide talent to address departments that need support and cut redundancies."
 
Outside of business speak, the streaming company has come under fire from a handful of musicians. Members of Mumford & Sons called it "commercial bullshit," Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard said they "totally blew it" and Steve Albini called it a "budget version of Pono."

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