r/technology • u/thinkB4WeSpeak • Sep 11 '26

Society Dating Apps Are Dying

https://time.com/article/2026/09/09/dating-apps-are-dying/
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891

u/LaserGadgets Sep 11 '26

Coworker tried it and whenever his subscription was ending, they had "new matches" for him. Told him its BS, he had too much money I guess.

301

u/Thunder_Nuts_ Sep 11 '26

Or when you subscribe and suddenly you have matches, but then they dissappear.

62

u/Signal_Ad_6915 Sep 11 '26

Or they are all men in Nigeria.

40

u/Dipsey_Jipsey Sep 11 '26

Royalty you say? 🤔

2

u/bibblejohnson2072 Sep 11 '26

I just need you to cover the brokerage fee..

4

u/pHyR3 Sep 11 '26

dont kink shame me

1

u/Romnir Sep 11 '26

Dating apps likely intentionally delete matches or hide them altogether

140

u/gibagger Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26

Yep. This happened to me. Subscription ending in a day or two, suddenly 3-4 matches.

Also, I get less than a match per week if I don't pay for a boost. If I pay for one? 12 matches one time, 8 the other one.

It's almost as if my Hinge profile is completely, absolutely invisible unless I pay up, or my subscription is about to expire. I work for a tech company so I know how Product Managers come up with these dark pattern shenanigans. I have seen it happen time and time again.

I have also implemented them once or twice (in ecommerce). Live by the sword...

41

u/Careless-Vehicle-286 Sep 11 '26

Paying into it in the first place probably makes the algorithm hyper punishing because they know money's to be made

28

u/gibagger Sep 11 '26

Yeah. Honestly the best thing might be to create new accounts every once in a while. I heard of people doing this to benefit from the new account boost that they give you to try and incentivize you to stay in the platform.

11

u/drteq Sep 11 '26

As someone who has been married over 30 years and missed the dating app experience - what does something like that cost on a monthly basis? Is it pay to win or do they have a top tier monthly subscription?

15

u/gibagger Sep 11 '26

Both haha. Pay to win as a few crucial features are paywalled. That in itself is not expensive. Features like seeing who liked you are crucial but made available in the cheapest subscription tiers.

On top of that, to get visibility you may need to shell extra for the add-ons. You basically need to purchase "attention" for your profile.

I think you could get a lot of value if you pay 50-60 bucks a month. Hopefully you wouldn't need to pay for too long.

3

u/_plays_in_traffic_ Sep 11 '26

it always made me wonder how many of those profiles are just chatbots

5

u/gibagger Sep 11 '26

Most of my "matches" never reply. At all.

You wouldn't need a chatbot for that. Good old fake profiles will do.

6

u/MetaCognitio Sep 11 '26

These companies need to be investigated and regulated as they are damaging society and harming people’s mental health.

1

u/aerdvarkk Sep 11 '26

This sounds like the app is addicted to cocaine (money but still).

6

u/ConglomerateCousin Sep 11 '26

The matches that usually come after subscription expires are usually bots or people from a different country, at least in my experience.

3

u/SportsterDriver Sep 11 '26

I noticed that if you were on the free tier, you get loads of 'interest'you needed to pay to unlock. As soon as you subbed that would vapourise and never return. Or they'd show automated responses as interest on long stale accounts which you didnt see the details of until you'd paid the sub.

7

u/Scheissdrauf88 Sep 11 '26

Weird how there is always at least one "like"... You just have to swipe to find it! When I tried out Tinder, I had to interrupt creating my profile. When I came back to finish it, that half-done profile lacking basically everything relevant had gotten a like... Of course, you also never encounter that last like.

I can not recommend swipe-based dating apps. Not only do you really notice at some point how you are strung along by design, the whole setup also heavily focuses superficial traits.

3

u/dealingwithhookers Sep 11 '26

way too many onlyfans on tinder that just want subsribers and followers

3

u/bucket_of_frogs Sep 11 '26

There’s no profit in making matches, once they’re partnered up they’re not spending. Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen. Their business model depends on everlasting desperation.

2

u/RoughQuarter Sep 11 '26

Last time I tried one (don't even remember which one it was) I had 12 matches before I even finished setting up my profile, and pretty much nothing after. Of course, they're not gonna tell you who those matches are unless you pay, but I'm pretty sure I can guess.

2

u/beartopfuentesbottom Sep 11 '26

You have 30 matches! Oh cool let me pay to see them! All out of country matches which look like scams and fakes. Oh :(

2

u/LaserGadgets Sep 11 '26

Its even worse when the website itself is launching fake shit to keep you going. Fraud²

2

u/WizardyoureaHarry Sep 11 '26

The idea that your soul mate was waiting for you behind a paywall is diabolical. Paying to have access to people who live only a couple miles from you and have public social media accounts. They finessed.

2

u/RC_0041 Sep 12 '26

I subscribed for a month to see how it was, as soon as it ended I got 12+ new matches lol. They can stay there forever because I'm not spending more.

1

u/computerguy0-0 Sep 11 '26

It REALLLLY depends on the app, how long you were on it, how much effort you put in, and ESPECIALLY where you live. I've paid for Hinge for a year, been on 30 first dates, a handful went somewhere and I'm 4 months in with a girl I really like. I live in a pretty rural area in a town of 3,000 people. Several towns around me are 20k to 30k people. So not a big area by any means. I would go 2 months without a viable match then all of a sudden be on 6 first dates in a month. It's very cyclical.

1

u/Ancient-Bat8274 Sep 11 '26

People actually subscribed to that scam?

1

u/Kumba42 Sep 11 '26

Match was doing this for a very long time, as far back as the early aughts, when they were known as TeenMatch (or operated a site called that; my memory is a touch fuzzy). I remember one time way back then when they offered a "free messaging weekend", with the only requirement being you give them a credit card number, and if you stayed active past midnight the next Monday, you would get charged. So I figured, "what the hell".

Tried messaging a few profiles I thought looked interesting, but got no responses across Saturday & Sunday. Late Sunday evening, I logged in to cancel/delete the account, and during the two-step delete process, got a notification that I have one new message. I clicked on it, and Match was suddenly like, we can only show you who messaged you if you subscribe. Saw the game for what it was and went back and deleted the account.

Swore I would never do business with a Match-affiliated site ever again. I did not expect them to buy out almost every other dating site over the next two decades, including my personal favourite, OKCupid (I even built a quiz on that site for fun). Once they acquired a site I either used or considered using, I stopped using it or deleted my profile/account. I think only Zoosk and eHarmony are still the more well-known dating sites/services that haven't been consumed the way Unicron consumed the Lithones.

1

u/curtcolt95 Sep 11 '26

I mean the question would be is he actually going on any dates? Like yeah it's probably too much money and they probably are using some shady tactics to get more but if he's still going on more dates than without the app it might be worth the money to him. A lot of people live in small towns where not using an app makes it pretty much impossible to meet new people regularly

1

u/LaserGadgets Sep 11 '26

I don't think he had any real dates with women he met on there.

1

u/Born-Collar-1222 7d ago

That's his filters... The filters are removed and new matches appear. 

1

u/LaserGadgets 7d ago

Yeah he tried some other filters a day before it was over.

No he did not.