So, you stopped reading at like the first item? I actually stated a couple of issues, not just “wealthy backers”. I also pointed out that I am quite aware that wealthy backers exist in several services, I even named some. The difference between wealthy backers in say, Netflix, vs. Tidal, is that the backers of Tidal come off in a way that isn’t palatable to me. That’s not unreasonable, it’s simply my opinion. It turns me off to giving them my money.

The OP points out the flaws in which that content is organized as well as how the service is marketed and how the service operates in general.

Those critiques are things I agree with, and I believe the marketing from Tidal is trying to tell me that the service is aimed at me. I know it isn’t for me, because I find it lacking, not just in content that I care about (despite the service saying it possesses more than enough content to please, and that’s okay), but in various aspects of how the service is run and presented (UI, etc.).

Music is a vast collection of content. Much like movies. Mo matter what service one subscribes to, or more correctly, I subscribe to I will only enjoy a sliver of that content. That’s just a realistic statement for a lot of people. I like hip hop, but I don’t like every hip hop song a service that specializes in hip hop will have. Name a genre, that’s going to stay true. The same is true for a movie streaming service. I will only really watch a small portion of horror movies, which I really enjoy. Because the content is vast, even if any service offered a certain portion of the total content, my absorption of that content will be tiny in comparison.

I don’t really like Spotify either, as a side note. :-)