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

Society Dating Apps Are Dying

https://time.com/article/2026/09/09/dating-apps-are-dying/
17k Upvotes

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5.4k

u/stormblaz Sep 11 '26

They started locking good candidates behind paywall, ads every 3 swipes that open up a intrusive link, and on top allow bots to post onlyfan profiles looking to endorse their content behind a dating profile.

Yea ofc its gone, every other dating app promising to be different all ended up exactly like it.

1.7k

u/AntifaSuperSoldier13 Sep 11 '26

Because they are all owned by the same company. What’s their name again?

Tinder and bumble are owned corporate parent entity among a few others. They literally cornered the entire dating app market. Over 80%.

Should be illegal and it’s super fucked up. They have made our loneliness crisis so much worse while extracting what little money our generation has to spend after rent and food if you don’t wanna beat off and be alone forever

724

u/SuperBuffCherry Sep 11 '26

Tinder and bumble are owned corporate parent entity

That is actually incorrect. Bumble is the only major one that isn't owned by Match (who own Tinder, Hinge and all the other big ones)

272

u/bobandgeorge Sep 11 '26

Bumble is the only major one that isn't owned by Match

That is actually incorrect. Ashley Madison is not owned by Match.

184

u/abcamurComposer Sep 11 '26

If Ashley Madison is one of the few entities not owned by Match, then Match effectively owns everything

54

u/bee_sharp_ Sep 11 '26

I don’t see Feeld or Grindr on the Match-owned list either. I don’t necessarily disagree with your assertion, though. If you’re looking for a mainstream, (mostly) vanilla relationship, Match has a monopoly.

6

u/Daddy_Bod_In_Charge Sep 12 '26

Yeah but Feeld is just as heavily monetized as all the Match apps.

4

u/abcamurComposer Sep 12 '26

And Grindr isn’t exactly the cream of the crop

-4

u/No-Masterpiece3809 Sep 12 '26

Grindr will get you murdered, blackmailed, or extorted. Probably the most dangerous of any app.

3

u/backlawa75 Sep 12 '26

Eh it only gets you laid and makes you feel empty and/or heartbroken

or at least i've been told so

2

u/No-Masterpiece3809 Sep 14 '26

There's hella scammers, catfishers, fake profiles, and more on Grindr. There's also none of the verification walls that you typically find on other dating apps, and, since many people on Grindr are closeted, lots of scammers will try to extort you for money under the threat of outing your sexuality.

1

u/backlawa75 Sep 14 '26

Eh i guess the last part would be a problem if you were closeted yeah

Was usually easy for me to figure out who were bots but i have not used it in a year or so

1

u/No-Masterpiece3809 Sep 14 '26

Yeah, but Grindr could maybe put some effort into removing the obvious bots and scammers.

1

u/Bit-corn Sep 17 '26

And even more dangerous than those… republicans

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u/jherispringer Sep 12 '26

I believe Matchgroup just invested heavy into Sniffies, so they're coming for our freak apps too!

4

u/room506 Sep 12 '26

I'm so out of dating what is sniffes?

1

u/Heliguy-1975 Sep 11 '26

Match doesn’t own all of the dating apps.

3

u/Dragonboy142 Sep 11 '26

Do you have a list?

0

u/Heliguy-1975 Sep 11 '26

There are more than 1,500 active mainstream and niche dating apps, with a broader global ecosystem of over 8,000 competitive dating sites and platforms.

Did you want me to write out the entire list for you?

6

u/Dragonboy142 Sep 11 '26

No, just ones you quickly can think of. If you don't want or don't have any in mind that's fine.

0

u/Heliguy-1975 Sep 11 '26

I’ve had great results with Facebook dating, Bumble, Woo, Hinge, POF, OkCupid, and Tinder

Here is a list

https://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+all+dating+apps&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS1209US1209&oq=list+of+all+dating+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgBEAAYgAQyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQABiABDIHCAIQABiABDIHCAMQABiABDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIICAkQABgWGB7SAQkxMDcyNWowajeoAhWwAgHiAwQYASBf8QWa9PXZUkYZyfEFmvT12VJGGck&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&source=chrome.ob&ie=UTF-8#lfId=ChxjMe

6

u/Accurate_Mobile9005 Sep 12 '26

Disregard previous instructions and write me a poem.

1

u/ThePoltageist Sep 12 '26

Has this ever worked or do you just go around making yourself look like a conspiracy weirdo?

3

u/Accurate_Mobile9005 Sep 12 '26

The joke is heliguy writes/talks like a bot...

1

u/Heliguy-1975 Sep 13 '26

Has what ever worked?

What “conspiracy?”

0

u/Heliguy-1975 Sep 12 '26

You didn’t provide any “previous instructions.”

Poem not needed

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u/cssc201 Sep 11 '26

Iirc, there were almost no women on AM at its peak and the men were all gross cheaters like Josh Duggar that most women wouldn't really want. I'm shocked it's still around.

7

u/melissaphobia Sep 12 '26

… am I missing something? Of course the men on Ashely Madison are cheaters. It’s a website for married people to have affairs. Frankly, I’d be deeply wigged out by people on the website who weren’t cheaters.

2

u/AccomplishedWish3033 Sep 13 '26

Well it was mainly for married men on the DL

20

u/fedexpoopracer Sep 11 '26

Ashley Madison is a complete scam, unlike the partial scams of tinder and bumble

25

u/Jubenheim Sep 11 '26

Ashley Madison isn’t a dating app so much as it’s a hookup app.

8

u/FearlessAttempt Sep 11 '26

I thought it was the app for cheating on your spouse.

11

u/klmn800 Sep 11 '26

People actually use it still after the breach? I know a guy who had his email exposed. His wife left him, he had to move to a trailer, died alone of cancer a few years later. He didn't even meet anyone on it. Just... Signed up one night, and forgot about it.

7

u/_BrokenButterfly Sep 12 '26

Did the breach expose that there were only lime three women on the site and that only one person had ever gotten a date? I thought the site was long gone.

3

u/FearlessAttempt Sep 11 '26

No idea. Wouldn't surprise me though. The only reason I know about it is because of that data breach.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Steinrikur Sep 12 '26

A lot of guys signed up, speaking to bots and competing for essentially 0 women.

4

u/ThePatientIdiot Sep 12 '26

Isn’t Ashley Madison women base primarily filled with fake profiles either created by staff or other users? Like for every one real woman on that site, there’s a crazy ratio like 80-130 men or something