Kanye, Beyonce, Jay Z & Daft Punk at the Tidal launch 30.03.15 / Image via Twitter

Tidal Has Flopped, And Helped Spotify Reach A New High

Despite its high-profile backers, Jay Z‘s music streaming service, Tidal, has flopped. At the same time, market-leader Spotify continues its dominance, and has now reached a new high as its value rises to over USD $8 billion.

Launched at the end of March, Tidal has run into some serious problems since its arrival. As Boy Genius Report note, the Tidal iPhone app is now out of the top 700 on the US downloads chart, after briefly cracking the top 20. To make things worse, the company’s main rivals, Pandora and Spotify, continue to expand.

Pandora and Spotify’s iOS apps recently managed to push Candy Crush Saga out of the top four on the US iPhone app downloads chart — which is impressive because, let’s admit it, a lot of people spend way too much time playing Candy Crush.

Interestingly, Spotify’s iPad app downloads surged on 31st March, when Tidal’s anti-Spotify campaign was at full force in the US. There are suggestions that Tidal’s attacks on its rivals may have even led to increased public awareness about competing services, which has contributed to Tidal’s downward spiral.

Spotify in particular is doing remarkably well out of all this, with reports now saying the service is worth more than the entire US recording industry’s 2014 revenue. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, the revenue of the country’s entire recording industry in 2014 was USD $6.97 billion, and that includes physical, digital and streaming revenue.

Spotify, which is currently in the process of securing USD $400 million in new funding, will be valued at USD $8.4 billion if it attains all of those new funds, as Business Insider reports.

Tidal has seen waves of criticism since its launch, mainly for its royalty structure and its focus on exclusives from wealthy, high-profile artists. The backlash has even come from artists themselves, including Mumford And Sons and Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard.

The company has responded to criticism of its focus on wealthy artists by launching a new service to support upcoming artists, but that alone is unlikely to save an organisation which many people still view as rich people complaining about not getting paid enough.

In other Tidal chaos news, the company has already replaced its CEO since launch, and a bunch of its famous backers, including Hov himself and Jack White, have reportedly been calling customers to thank them personally for using the service.

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