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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u/GargantuanCake Sep 11 '26

Apparently there was a time a while back where Hinge's leadership realized that its algorithm was working too well. People were forging relationships and once you're in one you aren't a customer anymore. So they decided to create a system that essentially sabotaged relationship forming.

The problem is that dating apps ended up going too far in the other direction; a dating app needs to, you know, actually lead to dates for people to use it. That however just isn't happening anymore. Meanwhile Tinder in particular got obliterated by an avalanche of bot accounts, scammers, and women just using it to promote their OnlyFans. The app that was supposed to get you laid stopped getting you laid so unsurprisingly people stopped using it.

Same with the dating and relationship apps; they quit leading to dating and relationships so people abandoned them. Weird how that works out. If you quit giving your customers what they want they leave.

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u/DoctorOctagonapus Sep 11 '26

When your entire business model revolves around making yourself redundant to your customer base, I don't know what people were expecting.

I'd like to see a not-for-profit dating app. I reckon that would work quite well.

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u/SeveralPhysics9362 Sep 11 '26

There are always new young people that are single. I don’t see why such a business couldn’t make it work.

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u/etiggy1 Sep 11 '26

Also, tweaking your service to do the exact opposite of what you advertise you provide is an objectively bad business strategy. They extracted money from the user base on the short term, but eroded their entire brand and the whole industry on the long term.

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u/blacksheepcannibal Sep 11 '26

(enshittification)

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u/obli_steak Sep 11 '26

Now the brand Tinder also is ruined, because if that app is the definition of warmth and a spark leading to a lasting fire; it's not keeping us warm.

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u/JalapenoPopPoop Sep 11 '26

I don't think Tinder ever had a good reputation as a dating app for finding relationships. It came out when I was a junior in college and back then, and even after graduation in early adulthood, pretty much everyone just thought it was a hookup app. Match, talk for a bit to see if you have any chemistry at all, maybe but not always meet for drinks as pretense, hook up. Basically no one was on there thinking they were gonna find "their person", at most you found a steady fuck buddy

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u/abcamurComposer Sep 11 '26

Tinder is a total meme, like even by today’s shitty standards people are much more willing to use other apps. Nearly every person who had a tinder did it as a joke, or to match with their friends for lols, or made a fake facemash profile

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u/Marshall_Lawson Sep 11 '26

when tinder was new it was always a cheap hookup app. Not necessarily as a joke but everyone knew it wasn't good for relationships. 

Source: I was in my early 20s when it launched. Learned about it from gay friends who called it "Grindr for straight people." Got laid from Tinder several times over my 20s and none of those experiences were emotionally healthy 

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u/Adventurous-Emu-9345 Sep 11 '26

Business strategist here. What is this 'long term' you're speaking of? Like TWO quarters from now or something?

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u/nothing_but_thyme Sep 11 '26

The only long term these exec teams care about is their next vesting date.

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u/VictorReal_Monster Sep 11 '26

That's VC for you.

Literally nothing good has ever come out of an MBA.

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u/Journeyman42 Sep 11 '26

It's the product of corporations only thinking in the short-term "numbers are going up this quarter!" without considering the long-term ramifications of how they're fucking themselves in the long-run.

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u/TransBrandi Sep 11 '26

This is the basic gameplan for VC firms it seems. Much like private equity firms, it's all about extracting an extreme amount of money in the short-term even if it leads to huge long-term consequences (because "fuck you, I got mine").

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u/criticalopinion29 Sep 11 '26

I mean that's the issue with finance and business in general. This is what they do everywhere. They squeeze and squeeze the consumer base till the consumer says "FUCK THIS! THIS SUCKS NOW! I'M OUT!" Then the business starts to collapse and these business and finance people move on.