For a while there, it looked like the only thing that Tidal—the Jay Z-backed subscription streaming music service—had going for it was an exclusive deal to stream Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo. You see, West gave his word (via Twitter, natch) that his latest album would “never, never, never” be available on Apple or for sale in general:
My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
But it seems that third “never” somehow canceled out the two preceding ones, because surprise! the album is now officially available on Spotify, Google Play Music, as well as Apple Music. Perhaps West was still harboring some resentment over the failure of his travel service that he meant to deny Apple Vacations his “30 out of 10” album? Well, whatever prompted the change of heart, this is bad news for Tidal, which has one-tenth the subscribers that Spotify holds, only half of whom pay for the privilege of access to albums like Rihanna’s Anti. West’s new album saw 250 million streams in its first 10 days on Tidal, so the relationship was mutually beneficial while it lasted.