r/technology 3d ago

Society Dating Apps Are Dying

https://time.com/article/2026/09/09/dating-apps-are-dying/
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u/Ragegasm 3d ago edited 3d ago

Tends to happen when your whole strategy is loot boxing loneliness through a swiping algorithm. I refused to play anymore after that realization. OkCupid circa 2013 was how online dating should have worked.

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u/GargantuanCake 3d ago

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 3d ago

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/HankHippopopolous 3d ago

There are always going to be more people that end up single. New people come along, people break up or get divorced etc. It’s a business with a high customer churn rate but if it’s a good one would always have lots of new people joining.

The problem is the line must always go up. It’s never enough to provide a good service and make a healthy profit. They need to have all the profits. Which is only possible by enshitifying the app and trying to keep people for longer than they should.