Jay-Z’s attempt to get into the music streaming business, Tidal, is total washout. It’s sort of funny to see the glee with which Tidal’s disaster’s has been assessed and found wanting. I personally don’t believe Jay-Z will suffer long-term – he’s still a rich, successful man and many rich, successful men have some bad ideas and bad investments in their portfolios. But it is funny because many of us believed that Jay was just trying to inflate Tidal and then quickly sell it for a big profit and now that’s sort of impossible. It’s also funny because Jay-Z and Beyonce have lived in the bubble too long – the bubble where everyone tells them that they’re brilliant and every one of their ideas is profitable, so it’s nice to see Jay have to face some hard truths about his bad business decision, even if he just shrugs it off as a media-driven “smear campaign.”

Why bring this up? Bloomberg Business ran a lengthy article about “Why Jay-Z’s Tidal is a Complete Disaster.” You can read the full piece here – Jay did not agree to an interview, which is fine, and the article doesn’t suffer for it. It’s written as a magazine-style analysis of just went wrong, why the music-streaming business is so tricky, and how Jay is going to have to likely eat a $56 million loss (that was how much he invested in Tidal). There’s also a discussion about why Jay took such a big risk, only to fail so hard, so publicly. The consensus opinion: Jay tried to this Tidal scheme hoping to line his pockets big time, because it’s his goal to be a billionaire. Jay’s apparently worth more than $500 million now, so he’s halfway there. But Tidal isn’t going to be where he doubles his money, you know? Anyway, the Bloomberg piece is a good read and it’s not even a slam-piece on Jay. The moral of the story is basically “finding a substantial revenue stream from streaming music is really difficult, but bless his heart for trying.”

Oh, and here’s something funny, also from the Bloomberg story: Sony might pull all of Beyonce’s music from Tidal. HAHAHA. Tidal and Sony haven’t reached a deal yet and Sony is threatening to yank Bey’s music and all of the Sony-released music from Tidal. Awkward. For what it’s worth, the Sony Music CEO said that they weren’t going to pull Beyonce or any of their artists’ music from Tidal and they’re rooting for Tidal. We’ll see.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.