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Match is not responsible for your lack of success in online dating. Having a lot of brands is not a good reason to involve the government. Hilton hotels has ove
by akersten 7y ago
Match is not responsible for your lack of success in online dating. Having a lot of brands is not a good reason to involve the government. Hilton hotels has over a dozen brands. There's nothing stopping you from creating a competing dating app. If you have some insight into what's "extremely broken" and a solution for it, you might even attract customers.
Sorry for being brash, but I've been seeing a lot of unjustified "just bring in the anti-trust hammer, that will fix all the problems in tech" posts lately, and most of them are fairly baseless.
- saagarjha 7y agoWhat major dating sites are not owned by Match?
- akersten 7y agoFacebook dating was announced recently. It doesn't really change my argument even if there weren't any major competitors; it's a prime space for entrepreneurs if it is as broken as people claim - there is a pretty low barrier to entry.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agowhy investors don't fund dating https://andrewchen.co/why-investors-dont-fund-dating/ https://andrewchen.co/why-investors-dont-fund-dating/
- dylan604 7y agoMaybe the "getting big enough to have Match buy us" could be the entire business plan for the next app to "compete" in this market? If you can bootstrap yourself along for getting Match's attention, you might not need the investors.
- rahidz 7y agoBumble, despite Match's best attempts to buy it out, and once that failed, to sue it into oblivion.
- somebodythere 7y agoGrindr, although "dating" may be a stretch.
- freehunter 7y agoIt's not about the number of brands but the percentage owned of the market. Hilton has a dozen brands but they're just one of several brands competing in the space. If Hilton bought up Marriott and IHG and Accor and Choice and Wyndham and Starwood, THEN you'd have a point. If Match owns all of the dating sites/apps and intentionally makes terrible matches to keep people engaged and buys out any competitor that challenges that, well we call that abusing a monopoly. If you've been seeing "anti-trust" mentioned a lot with the tech industry lately, it's probably because the tech industry is a huge unregulated market just overflowing with anti-trust concerns.
- akersten 7y agoIf you are an innovator in a space - first to market - by definition you'll have the majority percentage of the market. Online dating is a very young industry compared to hotels. Why not give other firms the chance to compete organically with Match, instead of itching for regulation so eagerly before we've really seen the industry play out? My point is that competing hotel brands did not need the government's help to come into existence, and the barrier to entry for a new hotel company is insurmountable compared to writing a dating app.
- freehunter 7y agoOkCupid was launched in 2004. They were bought by Match in 2011. Plenty Of Fish was launched in 2003. They were bought by Match in 2015. Hinge was launched in 2012. They were bought by Match in 2018. Meetic was launched in 2001. They were bought by Match in 2009. I agree, why don't we give other firms the chance to compete organically with Match? And maybe the right way to do that is to block Match from buying them.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y agoWere any of the above firms that wanted to compete with Match, or were they just happy with being bought out? I mean, in your scenario, if I had a successful dating app and wanted to be acquired by someone, I could end up being prevented from doing so.
- blub 7y agoThe anti-trust hammer won't fix the problems in tech, but it will definitely fix the problems with tech: too much power over us. If they're busy competing with each-other for customers, maybe they won't abuse so much...