The music streaming space has quite a few players, but I’d hardly say that it is the most saturated digital space out there. We’ve got options like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music; along with other big (but less so) players like Deezer, Amazon Music, and Tidal.
Wait, speaking of the latter. Things don’t seem great. Tidal had a rough time in this quarter last year, laying off some of its staff. Unfortunately, that’s about to happen again, but this time, the company will be letting its entire product management and product marketing department go. Could this be the beginning of the end for Tidal?
Tidal Will Be Laying Off Its Entire Product Marketing Department
Layoffs are never a good thing for companies. They usually indicate that the current company structure can’t be sustained and most of the time, that’s related to how much money is being spent and how much money it is bringing in. Unfortunately, layoffs happen to big companies a lot more than any of us would like. In today’s case, it is the popular music streaming service, Tidal.
Today, Jack Dorsey (yes, of Twitter fame), CEO of Tidal’s parent company, Block; announced that the company was going to be slimming down by quite a lot, returning to a lean start-up type structure. To get there, layoffs were certainly going to happen, and it has been made clear that the entire product management and product marketing department in the company is going to be removed. Ouch.
According to Jack, the company is going to focus on its engineering and design departments primarily. However, that doesn’t mean that those sections of the company are safe from further layoffs, as the statement continued to mention how the company will “consider reducing engineering over the next few weeks”. That’s not good to hear at all.
Following December 2023 Layoffs, The Company Could Be Letting Go As Many As 100 People
In this quarter last year, December to be precise, Tidal made the news for the wrong reasons. The company had to let about 40 of its staff go, across a number of departments in the company.
This year’s layoff could be a whole lot worse. A number wasn’t officially stated in the statement, but speculation puts it at as many as 100 people. That’s not an unreasonable number considering an entire department is being let go. For reference, that’s like a fourth of the company’s workforce.
The company also got rid of its free tier earlier this year, so all of this points to issues with revenue and profit. It’s not entirely surprising considering Tidal isn’t exactly a popular option outside of audiophiles.
Could This Be The End? How Will Things Work Without A Product Marketing Team?
This might actually spell the end of Tidal. Sure, massive companies like Meta and Microsoft can go through layoffs and survive, but Tidal isn’t quite on that scale, and when an entire, somewhat essential department is being axed, it makes you wonder how that company will make the next few years.
Tidal needs more customers, which would mean more money for them, but without a marketing team, will they rely on word of mouth? Things might not go great for Tidal, but let’s watch how it goes. Perhaps the tides might turn.
