The streaming arms race continues on with what appears to be an attempt from Apple to compete with Jay Z's Tidal service on a level of exclusivity. Tidal's competitive advantage, if any, lies in its ability to leverage limited releases from specific artists. For example, both Beyoncé and Rihanna have produced content released within the confines of the Tidal platform over the past couple weeks. Apple and Beats Music seems to have responded by reaching out to Taylor Swift, Florence And The Machine, among others, about exclusive content deals.
This all looks like it will be more and more of a headache for users who want a single platform to host all of their music, as these companies seem to be grabbing at pieces of a pie (imagine having to use one service to listen to Taylor Swift, then another to listen to Jay Z) and at each other's pieces of the same pie rather than coming together to provide something all-encompassing.
[via Bloomberg]
