Giving away music is how you get people to pay for it. That might seem crazy, but it’s true, though Jay-Z doesn’t want to listen. He just launched a music streaming service called Tidal with Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Kanye, Arcade Fire, and Rihanna as co-owners contributing exclusive content. The goal is to get artists properly paid.
The problem is Tidal subscriptions costs $20 for high-definition streaming and $10 for regular quality, with no free ad-supported option. Most people won’t pay.
Focusing on exclusives is a cool concept that might appeal to crazy fans, but it’s probably not enough to make Tidal a big success.
sannmantrackz
Actually Giving away free music Doesn’t get people to buy your music. what it does is condition your consumer to expect free music from you or any other artist. what it does is devalue the product. why do you you think people have 4million downloads ( Dreamchasers 2 for example) but barely move 300k of the album? You can’t blame marketing at that point cause what other marketing you need with 4mill downloads, 9.9 million mixtape views and 2.2 million streams of your mixtape? Also factor in the social media campaign and youtube and vevo numbers. People don’t buy music because they expect it to be free. We done this to ourselves. Do You see pop or country artist giving out free music? If so correct me cause I don’t see that happening in any other genre besides hiphop and r/b. I have tons of data to back this up cause I wrote a blog about it and conducted a pole research in my community and online. Free music devalues the artist. This is a healthy conversation I would like to continue. Blessings.