4 ms·

That's why dating apps should focus on lifestyle and romance as well as matching. Couples still could use apps to help coordinate their dates, etc. find sugges

That's why dating apps should focus on lifestyle and romance as well as matching. Couples still could use apps to help coordinate their dates, etc. find suggestions of places to go, meet other couples for double dates, find couples events nearby etc...

Rinzler89 2y ago
I doubt it. From my experience, anytime you try to turn human interaction into a mass market app that can appeal to all users, it inevitably turns to shit over time as it keeps getting gamed by all parties involved till it implodes from the shittyness. Tinder was also fun and cool in the early years when it was a niche app few people knew about, but it kept getting worse and worse over time: paywalled subscriptions and features, bots, women got a lot more flaky, men got a lot more creepy leading to a feedback loop of enshitification. It's kind of like the early days of online internet chat versus the internet of today. It was safer, cooler and more fun when only a few geeks were on it, anyone you met online was an experience not a fear, but once all and sundry moved in along with profit motives of big corporations, it became shit with ads, dark patterns, bots, trolls and weirdos everywhere. The same thing happened to Couchsurfing. It started off as a cool, niche, geeky way to travel and meet people, and over time it turned into a dating app where dudes from Paris/Barcelona/etc are renting their couch to young travelers form North America in exchange for sex. Same with the dozens of meetup apps for "making friends and meeting new people" which inevitably devolve into unofficial dating apps for creeps and weirdos who aren't there for any friendships. IMHO, it seems that on the mass market for-profit internet where everyone is allowed (and encouraged) to join, we just can't have nice things. To whit, the best online communities I found are now either in public places that are devoted to super niche things which don't attract trolls or big corporations to monetize, or on stuff like private torrent trackers where getting in only happens through personal referral.
- megadal 2y ago
  > From my experience, anytime you try to turn human interaction into a mass market app that can appeal to all users, it inevitably turns to shit over time as it keeps getting gamed by all parties involved till it implodes from the shittyness. But what I described doesn't appeal to all users. It appeals to a subset of the exact same demographic using dating apps, it just also appeals to them beyond finding their first match. You join the app and still have to find a match (or join with your partner; admittedly, a different demographic) to access any additional features. It's not some app you hop on to find a good grocery shop for Manuka honey or booking a flight. If the matching aspect works fine, adding additional features shouldn't reduce use of or interest in the app, unless they're coupled with an annoying UX ("Hey, we took time to add this so you must use it"). It's not an "everything" app, it's about providing additional value to the existing audience that extends beyond just matches. I don't think we can definitely say something like that does or doesn't work until we see enough of them crop up and fail. From what I have heard, niche dating apps (or "singles apps", more appropriately[1]) do okay in localized regions. I would bet they probably would do okay on a larger scale, just that real life dating probably is a different game from city to city and so you can't just ship the exact same experience as you might for Vancouver to Springfield [1] https://dvt.name/2020/02/24/rfc-lets-disrupt-dating-apps/ https://dvt.name/2020/02/24/rfc-lets-disrupt-dating-apps/
jerojero 2y ago
Pretty sure dating apps are doing fine business wise. Why rock the boat? It seems to me like the strategy is for the match group to buy off competitors and then slowly but surely turn these into tinder clones once they start gaining traction.
- megadal 2y ago
  My suggestion wasn't to improve the bottom line of dating apps, by the way. Dating apps are already incredibly profitable with all the value being provided by users. And pretty much every initiative to make them more profitable amounts to selling one segment of users to another. See Tinder Deluxe.
- jfengel 2y ago
  They're not. Their stock prices are cratering. Bumble just had a widely publicized, horrifically tone-deaf rebranding while trying to expand their market. There have been layoffs. A recent news story on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/business/dating-apps-tinder-bumble.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/business/dating-apps-tind... The problem is that they're losing young people, who seem to feel a lot less pressure to go meet somebody and pair off. They see the existing dating apps as having been designed for a Gen X sentiment, and that doesn't apply to them. They're still fumbling about for a new hook. They may well find it. But for the moment I don't think it's accurate to say that they're "doing fine".

Rinzler89 2y ago

I doubt it. From my experience, anytime you try to turn human interaction into a mass market app that can appeal to all users, it inevitably turns to shit over time as it keeps getting gamed by all parties involved till it implodes from the shittyness. Tinder was also fun and cool in the early years when it was a niche app few people knew about, but it kept getting worse and worse over time: paywalled subscriptions and features, bots, women got a lot more flaky, men got a lot more creepy leading to a feedback loop of enshitification. It's kind of like the early days of online internet chat versus the internet of today. It was safer, cooler and more fun when only a few geeks were on it, anyone you met online was an experience not a fear, but once all and sundry moved in along with profit motives of big corporations, it became shit with ads, dark patterns, bots, trolls and weirdos everywhere. The same thing happened to Couchsurfing. It started off as a cool, niche, geeky way to travel and meet people, and over time it turned into a dating app where dudes from Paris/Barcelona/etc are renting their couch to young travelers form North America in exchange for sex. Same with the dozens of meetup apps for "making friends and meeting new people" which inevitably devolve into unofficial dating apps for creeps and weirdos who aren't there for any friendships. IMHO, it seems that on the mass market for-profit internet where everyone is allowed (and encouraged) to join, we just can't have nice things. To whit, the best online communities I found are now either in public places that are devoted to super niche things which don't attract trolls or big corporations to monetize, or on stuff like private torrent trackers where getting in only happens through personal referral.

megadal 2y ago
> From my experience, anytime you try to turn human interaction into a mass market app that can appeal to all users, it inevitably turns to shit over time as it keeps getting gamed by all parties involved till it implodes from the shittyness. But what I described doesn't appeal to all users. It appeals to a subset of the exact same demographic using dating apps, it just also appeals to them beyond finding their first match. You join the app and still have to find a match (or join with your partner; admittedly, a different demographic) to access any additional features. It's not some app you hop on to find a good grocery shop for Manuka honey or booking a flight. If the matching aspect works fine, adding additional features shouldn't reduce use of or interest in the app, unless they're coupled with an annoying UX ("Hey, we took time to add this so you must use it"). It's not an "everything" app, it's about providing additional value to the existing audience that extends beyond just matches. I don't think we can definitely say something like that does or doesn't work until we see enough of them crop up and fail. From what I have heard, niche dating apps (or "singles apps", more appropriately[1]) do okay in localized regions. I would bet they probably would do okay on a larger scale, just that real life dating probably is a different game from city to city and so you can't just ship the exact same experience as you might for Vancouver to Springfield [1] https://dvt.name/2020/02/24/rfc-lets-disrupt-dating-apps/ https://dvt.name/2020/02/24/rfc-lets-disrupt-dating-apps/

jerojero 2y ago

Pretty sure dating apps are doing fine business wise. Why rock the boat? It seems to me like the strategy is for the match group to buy off competitors and then slowly but surely turn these into tinder clones once they start gaining traction.

megadal 2y ago
My suggestion wasn't to improve the bottom line of dating apps, by the way. Dating apps are already incredibly profitable with all the value being provided by users. And pretty much every initiative to make them more profitable amounts to selling one segment of users to another. See Tinder Deluxe.
jfengel 2y ago
They're not. Their stock prices are cratering. Bumble just had a widely publicized, horrifically tone-deaf rebranding while trying to expand their market. There have been layoffs. A recent news story on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/business/dating-apps-tinder-bumble.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/business/dating-apps-tind... The problem is that they're losing young people, who seem to feel a lot less pressure to go meet somebody and pair off. They see the existing dating apps as having been designed for a Gen X sentiment, and that doesn't apply to them. They're still fumbling about for a new hook. They may well find it. But for the moment I don't think it's accurate to say that they're "doing fine".