First the lols; if you're building an empire based on guilting fans for short-changing their favourite musicians it's probably not the smartest idea to wheel out some of the richest people on the planet to cry poor.
But there they were, onstage together in a bizarre line-up of unity and delusion: superwoman Beyonce, her hubby and Tidal's mastermind Jay-Z, his BFF Kanye, someone's grandma, the two dudes Daft Punk pay to stand around in those robot suits for them, the sap from Coldplay and famed guacamole enthusiast Jack White, to name but a few.
They stood stoically, silently, a little stupidly, beside spokeswoman Alicia Keys who blabbed on about "changing the course of musical history".
And then, with a face so straight I suspect she actually believed her words, she preposterously claimed that their "mission" was "not about commerce".
Then why did she keep bringing it up?
They came across as righteous and oblivious. Pity the poor millionaire with his Gucci hat in hand. Brother, can you spare us 0.05 per play? A penny for our streams?
It was hard to take their protestations seriously. Rihanna's so rich she could almost afford to buy a house in Auckland. Not in one of the nice suburbs. That would be ridiculous. But she could probably find herself a nice little do-up in an up-and-coming neighbourhood if she kept her expectations modest.
Good for them, I suppose. The streaming music model is bad for artists. We all know this. If they want to attempt to take the power back and stick it to the man, then go them.
But it's not the faceless big business bogeyman that loses out if their tide comes in. It's us regular music consumers.
Right now Spotify is near enough a one-stop shop for whatever musical whim takes your fancy at that particular moment. It's not perfect. It should pay artists more.
But as far as user experience goes, it's damn good. It offers the world's music at what you could legitimately call a reasonable cost. Especially if you roll with the ad-supported free version.
Tidal wants to crash this party. Streaming's subscription revenue is a growth business. Which is why Apple, Google and Amazon are also muscling their way in.
Jay-Z's strategy is to encourage artists to pull their music from his rivals and host it exclusively on Tidal. In exchange he gives them a higher, undisclosed, streaming rate and a sliver of equity.
This is good for Tidal but terrible for listeners who will soon start seeing big holes appearing in their once unified streaming service of choice.
So aside from the warm fuzzies you'll get from helping Kanye buy another ridiculously extravagant coat, I can't see any real customer incentive to sign up.
Sure, it's made a hullabaloo about its "HiFi" package that offers lossless quality streams as opposed to the compressed, lossy, mp3 streams of rival services. It's a nice idea. One I applaud.
But Tidal's execution stinks. First, you get the privilege of paying exorbitantly for this (roughly $26 a month) and, second, the audio difference is negligible on average gear.
And forget about it completely if your main listening source is your phone's earbuds.
A step down is "premium" tier. Non-stockholders would call this regular. It's the same price as Spotify but offers far less musical selection, therefore making it far more expensive.
To compete with Spotify's popular free, ad-supported option, or other free alternatives like YouTube or Pandora, Tidal doesn't. It's strictly pay to play.
What makes this so lamentable is that with a little more thought Tidal could have been a contender.
It's got star power behind it, exclusive content, HD streams and a cause. I don't think anyone would disagree that Spotify's streaming rate is a disgrace.
But by putting Tidal's focus on everything his fellow musicians aren't getting, Jay-Z has completely failed to acknowledge everything that music consumers currently are.
Until he realises this Tidal won't bring about the revolution. Hell, it won't even make much of a splash.
