Financial services and mobile payment company Square, Inc now owns a majority stake in Tidal which they bought for $297 million as of March 4th. The company said they are set to name Jays-Z to the Board of Directors. He will hold this role as they evolve Tidal into their own platform. At first, this may come as a surprise—Tidal is the smallest of all the streaming services. Its consistently lost money since its inception in 2014. So why would Square, Inc. be interested in an acquisition?
According to Square CEO, Jack Dorsey, the answer lies in their plans to create a new streaming service that facilitates artist payment and sales. As one of the leading financial service companies and the originators of Cash App, Square has a stronghold on the digital transaction infrastructure.
With this in mind, their main goals seem to be to strengthen the connection between artists and Cash App. This will allow them to create an ecosystem for artists to get directly paid for their work, merchandise, and performances.
In theory, this approach sounds exciting—anything claiming to help artists get paid more is always something to look into. We’ll just have to see how it stacks up against other services, such as the DIY and Indie artist-catered, Bandcamp.
