Tidal does not post the cost to buy a song or an album on their site

Good Lord, man, get with the program.  It isn't that hard.  Trolling, on the other hand, is easy.  

On a broader level:  You never really owned the music.  The writer and publisher own the composition.  The label owns the master.  You never have more than what is in effect a license to play the master, either paid in full, as with a traditional purchase, or paid on an ongoing basis, as with TIDAL and other streaming services.

Don't understand why you need to talk to someone. Personally I prefer doing business when I DON'T have to talk to someone. Why would you want to buy music when you can stream it at any time? Your arguments aren't really making sense. If you don't like TIDAL then go back to i-tunes.

Like many others, I find Tidal to be a phenomenal deal. I love the fact that for $20/month I get such a wide variety of hi-fi quality music. Thanks to Tidal and this forum, I have discovered all sorts of new artists I might never have found.

Some people, like the OP, need the personal touch - a knowledgeable phone rep to hold your hand and explain the finer points. Frankly, to me, the less human interaction needed, the better. With the right online resources, I’ll solve whatever my problem is on my own with less time and energy than what goes into a typical customer service phone call. It sounds like the OP doesn’t like the "social contract" of online business. We give you low prices and high value, but the cost will be attentive personal service. Few online businesses can afford to provide all three of those and still be profitable.

As for "purchasing" music. I just buy the CD used on Amazon. It costs about the same, or cheaper, and then I have my own physical copy to do with what I want.

Here’s my question: When a Tidal subscription lapses and downloaded tracks/albums will no longer play, does that imply that there’s some sort of DRM code embedded in the data? If so, does that digital watermark in any way degrade the fidelity? I haven’t noticed, but perhaps I’ve not got the late HP’s ears. Comments? Thoughts?

The tracks once downloaded are encrypted and held in storage. The app then validates that your subscription status is good and unencrypts the tracks for playback through the app. If you try and access these tracks outside of the app, through a file explorer, etc they won’t play for this reason. None of this has any audible impact on the sound.