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/DangerousTurmeric Sep 11 '26

From my experience, the apps stopped letting you filter people and started influencing who you are seen by so you get heaps of noise if you're a woman and absolutely no matches if you're a man. The aim was to make men pay for a better service. Instead many men got annoyed by this and just started swiping yes to everyone, which meant that "matches" are now not actually matches. Many women got burned out and started taking time outs and quitting because it's just too much and too unpredictable, so matches fizzled out. Lots of men interpreted this as women being too picky or lazy, so they stopped making an effort. And, gradually, everyone active online has encountered some form of bad behaviour multiple times and is tired of it. Now everyone hates the apps, is hypersensitive, and makes zero effort, except for the tiny proportion of newly single people (who may or may not be ready for a relationship) and the people with personality issues who are happy to tolerate the apps if it means they get validation. And that's before you even get into the widening progressive/conservative divide between women and men, and other normal incompatibilities. It's a total mess.

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u/SoggyWaffles427 Sep 11 '26

My one friend deciding to change his preferences to both men and woman, then farmed higher elo from getting swiped on by dudes and that led him to get better matches with girls

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u/Lou_Peachum_2 Sep 11 '26

That.. is genius lol

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u/smokeyleo13 Sep 11 '26

Ruins the app for gay men tho, so i know a lot whove stopped using it for that reason. Whats the point if 3/4 of the dudes ur seeing are just straight looking to up their ratio, we have better apps youre not on anyway

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u/eat_my_ass_n_balls Sep 11 '26

But there ARE a lot of conservative men on those apps too

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u/WhenSharksCollide Sep 11 '26

You see they crashed grindr again this week? Pretty sure this is like the fourth year in a row...

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u/stochasticraccoon Sep 16 '26

Gay men flood bumble bff for men so all around any kind of app that matches people is doomed it seems.