For the first time ever, a streaming service is selling CDs.
Prince released his new album—his third in under a year, btw—called HitNRun Phase One as a Tidal exclusive on Sept. 7. After a week of streaming behind the service's paywall, the album was then released wide to other retailers such as iTunes and Amazon, with Tidal joining the effort by functioning as...a retailer?
Yep.
The service offers both regular mp3 and hi-fi (FLAC) versions of the album digitally, selling for $9.99 and $17.99, respectively.
But it gets weirder.
Tidal is selling the physical CD of HitNRun. If a consumer insists on this peculiar path of most resistance to attain it, however, it will set them back more than $25, including shipping.
The unnecessary shade from HDD
As if Tidal is the only service who has our emails. I've only received 3 messages from Tidal and only one since my trial ended. I get ads from Apple like every other day. And Best Buy twice a day some times.
We all know they are on Apple's payroll.