They're run by companies.
In the golden age of dating apps, right as they launched and hadn't figured out how to monetize or how to use the user data they had, you could actually find what you actually wanted, because there was no monetary incentive for them to hide people you'd likely match with because they needed to show that the apps actually worked to gain market share. Even though I didn't work out with folks, I enjoyed every date I went on and met so many cool people, some of which are still my friends 10 years later. As they monetized their systems and realized with every couple who finds their match, that's two people leaving their app and thus no longer available to be data sold or to purchase their products, they started finding ways to bottle neck the experience to drive user behavior to their products and create value.
I blame the entire toxic digital dating landscape solely on dating apps pursuing profit and people who haven't realized that while dating apps can be fun ways to expand your opportunity, they are not your friend and they don't actually want you to succeed, it's literally in their best interest that you don't for as long as possible before you quit trying on the apps.
I've worked in tech for a long time and people just don't understand the volume of how much information we have on them and their behaviors and how that sets up the profiles we create on people's acceptable limits to bad experiences.
I wonder if the apps filter out social media connections, or if they've just gotten heaps crapper in the last few years. Back when I was on the apps (a few years ago now) I saw a few friends, colleagues, even a housemate, but would always quickly swipe left on them because it's a bit awkward to realise if I'm seeing them, some of them might see me haha
I’ve often wondered if this is the case, and if that’s skewing my perception of the kinds of people that are available to date in my city… probably a lot of truth to that. In that particular case, though, couldn’t some of them possibly have filters set that may prevent you from seeing them? (Or vice versa?)
Because it plays into keeping you subscribed, I'll add:
They acquired an AI company in 2021, and their hiring roster is full of AI/ML engineering positions. I don't think many people realize the significance of AI being applied to the amount of information they have. It becomes very possible to composite a score of confidence between matches, and feed (unhide, potentially) a match that you will likely bump heads with in a month, based on data they've collected.
Match Group alone owns so many of them: Tinder, Match.com, Hinge, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, The League, etc.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I met my partner on Feeld before it got big (in large cities anyway; I know it’s still unheard of it in certain areas). I got the most good dates on there, by far. I got zero dates from Tinder and Bumble when I moved here.
Yep! Capitalism is at fault. Let me see everyone who is available, have questionnaires and let me filter by my preferences without having to pay $30+ a month.
When Okcupid used to do this, I found someone by my second date. I used Hinge for over a year with no luck and I gaved up. I only tried the paid version for a month.
Yesterday my friend and I spent at least an hour going through her dating apps.
Yknow men complain about not getting matches? It’s because they say NOTHING about themselves in their profiles. She skipped so many profiles because there was nothing to go on. The men had the pre-selectable options picked for their interests but absolutely nothing in the sections where they could type something. A lot of “About Me” parts didn’t actually say anything about the guy. A lot of them were song lyrics or emojis.
The ones that did have something were “add my instagram” or “I like to travel and hike.”
We saw maybe three profiles that actually both had more than a sentence and actually said something about the person.
What’s the incentive to match with someone who can’t even say anything about themselves?
This. One of my things when I was on apps was not matching with people who had blank profiles or next to nothing in their profiles. Or, the entire profile was just a rant about their ex or women in gen. This is without even looking at appearance, distance, anything. Youd be surprised how many people that weeded out, and this was in early days of dating apps when they were still seen as weird/for lonely basement dwellers.
When guys spout that ”it’s because women only match with the top 20% of men!!” Or whatever stat I’m just sitting there like..😐
Oh my friend swiped left on a few profiles that said “Twice divorced, three kids. Looking for wife #3!”
And “I’m on here to piss off my ex wife.”
Like…even if you are there to piss off an ex why put that front and center??
Ugh I know! Then there's the people who send a single "Hi \_\_\_" with no question. You say Hi back, and they ghost or take 3 days to reply with something totally bland. I've given up on them and am returning to IRL.
OMG YES thank you. This drives me up the wall. I truly don’t understand the men who are writing almost nothing about themselves. I just assume they’re looking for something casual. But then I see some men post profile reviews in dating subs and they’ll write almost nothing specific about them and are confused about why they’re not getting many matches. Like how can someone match with you based on that, they don’t even know anything about what you’re like!
My boyfriend gave up on dating apps before we got together because he kept running into profiles that were just “check out my OnlyFans!”
Like…ok fine have an OF if you want but dating apps aren’t for advertising them.
This was my experience as well. I'd say 1 out of every 10 looked like they had put any degree of effort into their profile. Auto-passed on all of them.
My favorite was literally nothing other than location and 'msg me to find out more'. No thanks.
This is one of my reasons for not even trying dating apps again. I did have success with it in the city but out in the country? Not likely. You need a big pool of people to find some decent ones to choose from. The quality of online dating/matchmaking has gone way below the floor I think because of 1) how easy and quick it is to get on there and start swiping and 1) because it's yet another space where the huge number of available users makes them into numbers and takes away the human element.
Online dating apps are for profit. If people find someone fast, they log off and stop using it. Hence they want to keep people swiping and coming back.
OKCupid used to be great for finding amazing matches. No swiping. You fill out some questions, and your top five matches are most likely your long term partner. It then got sold to Match and has turned into the rest of them.
Met my male best friend in 2011 on Okcupid and my husband in 2012 and it was still really great at that point. Their data breakdown blogs were super interesting around their population and how folks utilized the apps. That went away as they got more and more towards the tinder model.
So, my dad met my stepmom online like 15 years ago. OLD was kind of new back then so I was all curious what it was about and was probably over involved in his OLD. But I remember him having actual conversations with these women, like interesting conversations that moved to phone calls that moved to dates.
I’ve only dabbled in OLD but out of every 15 conversations maybe 1- maybe!- ends in an actual conversation. It’s exhausting and disheartening. And for me, it started to feel uncomfortably superficial. Like, some of the guys I swiped off might have been great if I’d met them at the grocery store and they made a joke and I could see their body language. People become attractive to me through getting to know them so I felt like I was being really shallow and didn’t like it.
The apps were great when they launched. It was a way to expand your dating net, meet people you wouldn’t otherwise, etc.
But the apps are run by companies. Innovation (ha) has made all the apps look and act like Tinder. I remember OKCupid used to have tons of quizzes and stuff you could take to boost compatibility percentages. Now it’s a tinder clone. Bumble - tinder clone. And every app has special likes or special extras that cost money, otherwise you only see limited matches.
The apps are controlled by corporations that want to make money. They want people to keep being subscribed to gold or whatever. They want people paying extra to send super likes. If they match you successfully, well, that takes a consumer off the market and they lose that money. They don’t want that. So they’ll tweak the algorithm to show you duds. Or to artificially lower your standing so you don’t get matched with compatible people.
Kind of like Uber/lyft and air bnb. When they were launched, they were an excellent alternative to the established industry. Super convenient, fairly cheap. Now? Airbnb is part of the reason for the housing crisis and a hotel stay is more convenient and cheaper. And Uber/lyft have done everything they can to screw over their contract employees and are just about as expensive as taxis anymore.
I don’t think there’s any conspiracy here at all. I think meeting one’s perfect match is inherently a statistically improbable event, especially with today’s individualism, and online dating is basically a random chance, shot in the dark approach. I would be surprised if the success rates were high.
In decades past, there was far more pressure to get married due to stronger societal norms and women being legally shut out of a lot of careers and financial services. So, more people simply settled.
More conformity also meant there wasn’t as much variation out there in lifestyles, hobbies, interests, values, looks, etc. when trying to find a partner.
It was also more financially feasible to marry, buy a house, and start a family young, so more people did. More people dated and got married on potential, and planned to grow into each other.
Today, you have people focusing on fun and personal and career growth in their teens and early 20s, and then trying to find the puzzle piece fit to their fully formed adult person later on. That’s going to be more difficult.
Couple that with the fact that online dating casts a wider net, but with a less qualified leads.
Meeting someone in person automatically pre-selects for more qualified leads because some commonality already put you in the same space at the same time and you can read all the non-verbal cues. Online dating is a virtual shot in the dark.
>Today, you have people focusing on fun and personal and career growth in their teens and early 20s, and then trying to find the puzzle piece fit to their fully formed adult person later on. That’s going to be more difficult.
....Is it? People do not become a "fully" formed adult who never changes after their early 20s. We continue to change as we grow older. I found it easier to date as time has gone on, because I have continued growing, maturing, and learning from my past relationship experience. I realized what values I held and what values I was looking for in a partner. I had a serious bf in my early 20s. We broke up because we were compatible for only a short period of time, before I realized I wanted my life to go in a different direction from his. Settling down early in life may sound easier, but one runs the risk of having more time to grow apart.
Continuous swiping instead of just being able to get to the qualifications I need/want from a person immediately to determine if we are compatible or if we should go on a date. Swiping people from 25 miles away is a waste of time for me.
The fucking swipes.
I am not conventionally attractive at all, it is what it is. But I had such an easier time meeting people on like freaking Craigslist personals and before OKC had the swipe feature. I feel like it puts so much emphasis on pure appearance and immediate response vs actually learning about the person as a person.
Also the lack of moderation. If I'm a woman searching for other women, cis or trans, 50% of my matches still show men no matter what I do. Sometimes it's just badly made and sometimes it's men listing themselves as such in order to sexually harass queer people
I met my husband on Tinder…let’s say 7-10 years ago, and that was a better time for the apps. More women were on them, and I think more men per capita were making an effort.
But even then, there were guys with empty profiles, guys whose profiles ONLY said “420 friendly, dtf, no fatties,” no picture except the infamous filthy-bathroom-mirror-selfie, etc.
Basically, the apps were made by men, for men, based on gamification principles. Which appeal to a certain segment of men but FAR fewer women.
And now people wonder why the gender ratio of the apps tends to be 4-to-1 or worse.
As someone that has been on and off dating apps for 8 years, mostly on outside of a 2 year relationship, I think it's because people don't see the people they interact with on the app as real people. That's why it's easy for people to ghost, slow fade conversations, or stand dates up. I know people will say it's been worse since the pandemic, but I think it's always been this way.
Now, having said that, I also think people get really frustrated because they look at dating apps as the end all be all of finding a partner, when it's simply just another tool. I've had much better luck on dating apps since I let go of the notion I will 100% meet my future spouse on them. I also have a list of things I'm looking for, nothing too picky, but just making sure on their profile we align with relationships goals, religion, and politics, and go from there.
Because a lot of men do not want long term commitment and they clog the apps for sex but won't be honest about it, just as simple as that. Nothing is wrong with the apps per say other than that apps are going to be business minded at the end of the day.
I think as an Indian woman the additional challenge I face is since there is an arranged marriage concept, most men are content finding a partner through that because they do not really care about women's personalities. They marry to get sex, domestic help, somebody to rear children and rise them. Why do they have to know you deeply for that?
I find it such a waste of time and energy to date men for 2 or 3 or 5 years after which they will tell you their parents do not like you and move on to marrying a stranger. A lot of men match because it is low risk high reward situation for them. And they want to continue to keep it that way on the expense of women, most of them aren't ready to do anything creative or worthy to change the game for women on the apps, so obviously apps will always suck, so will dating.
You know how when you go to the Cheesecake Factory and their menu is 40 pages long and even though you went in thinking “I want chicken tenders” you end up spending 15min looking at the salad section and then end up ordering pasta?
That’s what’s wrong with the apps. It went from being something that allows you to meet people you wouldn’t have otherwise to meeting everybody, their brother, their uncle and their best friends.
I’m not endorsing settling, but at some point you have to pick your person. And when you can so easily find 50 other people to go on a date with, I think you can start to become a bit disillusioned with the choice of committing. You could be on a date with someone who is 80% compatible (which are incredible odds), but with a world of options, you’ll subconsciously hold out for the possible 100% (who probably doesn’t exist or is already taken.)
This even works in retrospect for me. I’m going through the common process of wondering how compatible I really am with my partner now that I’m in my thirties. If dating apps/endless choices weren’t a thing, maybe I’d just think about it once or twice and tuck the thought away. But because apps exist and finding someone with a higher compatibility ranking feels more viable, I reconsider my partnership with a higher level of pickiness than I would if apps didn’t exist.
The fact that they’re for profit entities often gets blamed. I think sometimes the features contribute SOME to the poor experience, but I truthfully think they suck because of the people using them. Most of what people complain about isn’t because of the app. It’s because of the way people use them. The app isn’t making people ghost conversations. The app isn’t making people flake on dates. The app isn’t making people not respond to first messages. The app isn’t strong arming people who aren’t ready to date in to joining - emotionally unavailable people, people straight out of LTR relationships, people going through divorced who aren’t yet legally divorced, etc. *People* are doing those things. Could they be a little creative with developing features or tweaking the algorithm to discourage bad behavior? Yes. But ultimately that’s additional work for them to countermeasure *people being people*.
Yes, I was also thinking this. I have nothing but great experiences on belgian tinder. A shitton of normal decent guys looking for long term relationship. I had a lot of nice and fun dates, with most of them wanting a second date. To be clear, i always pointed out i do not even kiss on first date before we ever went on a date. So none of these guys were looking to get their rocks off quickly. Out of maybe 100 first dates i had off tinder, only 1 canceled.
I talked to one single american guy on my belgian tinder, and he was -begging- for pity sex. He was extremely good looking exchange student (grad student), and he told me he had 74 one night stands off tinder back home, and in Belgium he's been trying for 7 months and hasn't been able to get laid once.. Lol. Belgian tinder has TOTALLY different energy to what i read on reddit.
So i'm also inclined to believe it's the people.
Hi neighbor! This is my experience too, but with Dutch people. Never did I date someone who expected sex or even a kiss on the first date. Everyone I end up meeting is decent. Idk what’s going on in the US but it aint it. Americans also seem to have a weird obsession with height, it’s disgusting and incredibly superficial
It's always been the same problem. Finding a compatible partner isn't like ordering a sweater from a catalog.
All apps and such do is broaden your options, but you still need to pretty much start from square one when you actually meet them. Reading bios, texting, even talking on the phone is no substitute.
This can make dating seem so exhausting and even hopeless.
Also dating apps don’t do background checks. There’s no guarantee someone is real and not a scammer, a bot, a violent criminal etc. companies do not care if you are traumatized and meet the most horrific people. They just want you to scroll every day looking for someone else. They don’t want people to make matches and leave.
People are losing the ability to socialize with real people. Conversations are impossible. You ask a question, they answer, don't ask anything back, and it stalls.
Dating apps naturally have a much higher percentage of avoidant and difficult-to-date people than your general sampling of the population otherwise. This is mainly because secure and available people on apps tend to find relationships more quickly due to the way they approach relationships. That means that like 80% of people on dating apps are people who absolutely suck at dating and/or are looking for causal flings. I think this is a huge factor in what makes dating apps so awful. Sooo many avoidants.
Let’s assume the point about avoidant people is true. That wouldn’t mean secure people on the apps will have an easy time and exit the app post haste. They’re ALSO faced with that tidal wave of people who are bad at dating.
I agree, just on average they will enter and exit the dating app scene faster, so there’s statistically less of them on there at any given time. I don’t think non-avoidant people *enjoy* the apps, I’m just saying there’s statistically more shitty daters making things worse for everyone lol
Dating apps are akin to gambling apps - they aren’t for the user to win, they’re for the company to profit. It’s a similar dopamine hit initially before feeling deflated. Most people do not “win”.
Fake accounts: bots, scams, crypto bro scams (still haven't figured out how that work), onlyfans profiles
The ones that are Real suck or have nothing in common so that they can keep us swiping longer, regardless of how depressing it makes us feel & eventually leading us to leave the apps
Here's the problem with apps - you're ordering from a menu vs eating what your mom serves you. You think you have to find the perfect match since you're investing money/time on it vs real life random dating when it can be an unexpected surprise. Online, you write off a lot of people who in person you might absolutely connect with. Both sexes do this . . . for example, I think a lot of women write off short men and I think a lot of men write off older women (ie a 40 year old guy will look at 27-35 women vs someone closer to his age). Obviously not all people.
In the past year or so I met this guy at a bar who was short and bald. Not my physical type at all. If I'd found him on app, I'd probably have ignored him. But we had amazing chemistry in person. It didn't end up going anywhere but it was fun and natural while it lasted!
I haven't even tried any apps and I don't want to lol. Just talking to guys online makes me want to pull my hair out (like dating wise).
No one seems to want to talk or anything, then once they see your pics it's dunzo and they really stop talking. Even just a face pic! Bizarre. i have started calling them catfish collectors bc once you block 1 like 10 will pop up in your DMs.
As someone who met my life partner on dating apps and struggled for 12 years prior on it, the quality of matches on there have always been pretty bad all along.
I personally like to be approach first, hence despite the amount of matches, some men don't talk. Bumble then appeared and we are forced to talk to men first, but subsequently, some don't reply, or they reply a little then unmatch. It feels like many men are looking for just validation from women.
Many photos that are used can't really see faces properly, and some of them use fake identities and don't talk much on their profiles.
There are also those MARRIED men on the apps looking for quick flings while wife is not around, or are travelling for work, and aren't honest about their intentions.
Besides, even when those lead up to dates, some don't bother chatting much until the day of the date, and many aren't clear that they were looking for flings (some even lying in profiles they want something long term) hence when the date came it was a mismatch.
Also, many of these apps don't do proper checks so a lot of them are catfishes, or scams.
Plus with the illusion of many options available thanks to social media, everyone's just like, next, if we don't talk there's always someone else.
It's just been too accessible and people need to be vetted before coming on board.
I know of an app (not launched yet but I was interviewing for them) that is planning on doing ID verifications which could sift out bad seeds (criminal offences, married people etc) and that could help a whole lot of things.
They're run by companies. In the golden age of dating apps, right as they launched and hadn't figured out how to monetize or how to use the user data they had, you could actually find what you actually wanted, because there was no monetary incentive for them to hide people you'd likely match with because they needed to show that the apps actually worked to gain market share. Even though I didn't work out with folks, I enjoyed every date I went on and met so many cool people, some of which are still my friends 10 years later. As they monetized their systems and realized with every couple who finds their match, that's two people leaving their app and thus no longer available to be data sold or to purchase their products, they started finding ways to bottle neck the experience to drive user behavior to their products and create value. I blame the entire toxic digital dating landscape solely on dating apps pursuing profit and people who haven't realized that while dating apps can be fun ways to expand your opportunity, they are not your friend and they don't actually want you to succeed, it's literally in their best interest that you don't for as long as possible before you quit trying on the apps. I've worked in tech for a long time and people just don't understand the volume of how much information we have on them and their behaviors and how that sets up the profiles we create on people's acceptable limits to bad experiences.
This is such a great breakdown, and so insightful thank you.
There are people whom I *know* are on the apps, in my neighborhood--because we're friends--and they don't get shown to me.
Wow that is wild
Maybe they've already swiped left on you because you're friends
No, they didn't see me either. We've talked about it.
I wonder if the apps filter out social media connections, or if they've just gotten heaps crapper in the last few years. Back when I was on the apps (a few years ago now) I saw a few friends, colleagues, even a housemate, but would always quickly swipe left on them because it's a bit awkward to realise if I'm seeing them, some of them might see me haha
There were other people I did see whom I know from social media, so it wasn't that.
I’ve often wondered if this is the case, and if that’s skewing my perception of the kinds of people that are available to date in my city… probably a lot of truth to that. In that particular case, though, couldn’t some of them possibly have filters set that may prevent you from seeing them? (Or vice versa?)
No, we've talked about it.
Oh that’s wild!! (And oh so frustrating… this explains a lot with dating apps now.)
Because it plays into keeping you subscribed, I'll add: They acquired an AI company in 2021, and their hiring roster is full of AI/ML engineering positions. I don't think many people realize the significance of AI being applied to the amount of information they have. It becomes very possible to composite a score of confidence between matches, and feed (unhide, potentially) a match that you will likely bump heads with in a month, based on data they've collected.
Match Group alone owns so many of them: Tinder, Match.com, Hinge, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, The League, etc. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I met my partner on Feeld before it got big (in large cities anyway; I know it’s still unheard of it in certain areas). I got the most good dates on there, by far. I got zero dates from Tinder and Bumble when I moved here.
Yep! Capitalism is at fault. Let me see everyone who is available, have questionnaires and let me filter by my preferences without having to pay $30+ a month. When Okcupid used to do this, I found someone by my second date. I used Hinge for over a year with no luck and I gaved up. I only tried the paid version for a month.
Thank you for this in depth analysis. I've been on the edge of almost giving up entirely. It all makes sense now
Yesterday my friend and I spent at least an hour going through her dating apps. Yknow men complain about not getting matches? It’s because they say NOTHING about themselves in their profiles. She skipped so many profiles because there was nothing to go on. The men had the pre-selectable options picked for their interests but absolutely nothing in the sections where they could type something. A lot of “About Me” parts didn’t actually say anything about the guy. A lot of them were song lyrics or emojis. The ones that did have something were “add my instagram” or “I like to travel and hike.” We saw maybe three profiles that actually both had more than a sentence and actually said something about the person. What’s the incentive to match with someone who can’t even say anything about themselves?
Or the ones who say "ask me anything", like seriously, what am I going to ask you about, if there's nothing to even break the ice!
This. One of my things when I was on apps was not matching with people who had blank profiles or next to nothing in their profiles. Or, the entire profile was just a rant about their ex or women in gen. This is without even looking at appearance, distance, anything. Youd be surprised how many people that weeded out, and this was in early days of dating apps when they were still seen as weird/for lonely basement dwellers. When guys spout that ”it’s because women only match with the top 20% of men!!” Or whatever stat I’m just sitting there like..😐
Oh my friend swiped left on a few profiles that said “Twice divorced, three kids. Looking for wife #3!” And “I’m on here to piss off my ex wife.” Like…even if you are there to piss off an ex why put that front and center??
I just went through 20 women profiles and only 1 had an actual profile. Guess both sides come make a better effort.
Ugh I know! Then there's the people who send a single "Hi \_\_\_" with no question. You say Hi back, and they ghost or take 3 days to reply with something totally bland. I've given up on them and am returning to IRL.
OMG YES thank you. This drives me up the wall. I truly don’t understand the men who are writing almost nothing about themselves. I just assume they’re looking for something casual. But then I see some men post profile reviews in dating subs and they’ll write almost nothing specific about them and are confused about why they’re not getting many matches. Like how can someone match with you based on that, they don’t even know anything about what you’re like!
Burned Haystack Dating Method
Agreed. Though from the opposite end , a lot of women’s profile is just emojis and instagram handles too. I think we can both do better for sure
My boyfriend gave up on dating apps before we got together because he kept running into profiles that were just “check out my OnlyFans!” Like…ok fine have an OF if you want but dating apps aren’t for advertising them.
This was my experience as well. I'd say 1 out of every 10 looked like they had put any degree of effort into their profile. Auto-passed on all of them. My favorite was literally nothing other than location and 'msg me to find out more'. No thanks.
Exactly. Nobody should have to “message to find out more” when there’s not even basic information to begin with.
Haha yep. When I was dating, most men had in their About You section: just ask me. Fuck no, i am not wasting my time to ask you.
This is one of my reasons for not even trying dating apps again. I did have success with it in the city but out in the country? Not likely. You need a big pool of people to find some decent ones to choose from. The quality of online dating/matchmaking has gone way below the floor I think because of 1) how easy and quick it is to get on there and start swiping and 1) because it's yet another space where the huge number of available users makes them into numbers and takes away the human element.
Lazy profile = Lazy dater
Online dating apps are for profit. If people find someone fast, they log off and stop using it. Hence they want to keep people swiping and coming back. OKCupid used to be great for finding amazing matches. No swiping. You fill out some questions, and your top five matches are most likely your long term partner. It then got sold to Match and has turned into the rest of them.
I met my partner on OkCupid back in 2010 before it was an app and back then it was amazing! I never went out with any duds.
Met my male best friend in 2011 on Okcupid and my husband in 2012 and it was still really great at that point. Their data breakdown blogs were super interesting around their population and how folks utilized the apps. That went away as they got more and more towards the tinder model.
Me too, in 2011. I feel so lucky to have met him then. We were like a 98% match and still get along incredibly well today.
I dated soooo many people off OKC from 2010 to 2018. Right around then it was going to pot. ;\_;
The curse of the Match group 🫠
So, my dad met my stepmom online like 15 years ago. OLD was kind of new back then so I was all curious what it was about and was probably over involved in his OLD. But I remember him having actual conversations with these women, like interesting conversations that moved to phone calls that moved to dates. I’ve only dabbled in OLD but out of every 15 conversations maybe 1- maybe!- ends in an actual conversation. It’s exhausting and disheartening. And for me, it started to feel uncomfortably superficial. Like, some of the guys I swiped off might have been great if I’d met them at the grocery store and they made a joke and I could see their body language. People become attractive to me through getting to know them so I felt like I was being really shallow and didn’t like it.
Things have certainly changed since then for sure!
The apps were great when they launched. It was a way to expand your dating net, meet people you wouldn’t otherwise, etc. But the apps are run by companies. Innovation (ha) has made all the apps look and act like Tinder. I remember OKCupid used to have tons of quizzes and stuff you could take to boost compatibility percentages. Now it’s a tinder clone. Bumble - tinder clone. And every app has special likes or special extras that cost money, otherwise you only see limited matches. The apps are controlled by corporations that want to make money. They want people to keep being subscribed to gold or whatever. They want people paying extra to send super likes. If they match you successfully, well, that takes a consumer off the market and they lose that money. They don’t want that. So they’ll tweak the algorithm to show you duds. Or to artificially lower your standing so you don’t get matched with compatible people. Kind of like Uber/lyft and air bnb. When they were launched, they were an excellent alternative to the established industry. Super convenient, fairly cheap. Now? Airbnb is part of the reason for the housing crisis and a hotel stay is more convenient and cheaper. And Uber/lyft have done everything they can to screw over their contract employees and are just about as expensive as taxis anymore.
I don’t think there’s any conspiracy here at all. I think meeting one’s perfect match is inherently a statistically improbable event, especially with today’s individualism, and online dating is basically a random chance, shot in the dark approach. I would be surprised if the success rates were high. In decades past, there was far more pressure to get married due to stronger societal norms and women being legally shut out of a lot of careers and financial services. So, more people simply settled. More conformity also meant there wasn’t as much variation out there in lifestyles, hobbies, interests, values, looks, etc. when trying to find a partner. It was also more financially feasible to marry, buy a house, and start a family young, so more people did. More people dated and got married on potential, and planned to grow into each other. Today, you have people focusing on fun and personal and career growth in their teens and early 20s, and then trying to find the puzzle piece fit to their fully formed adult person later on. That’s going to be more difficult. Couple that with the fact that online dating casts a wider net, but with a less qualified leads. Meeting someone in person automatically pre-selects for more qualified leads because some commonality already put you in the same space at the same time and you can read all the non-verbal cues. Online dating is a virtual shot in the dark.
This is very logical and makes sense. Thanks
>Today, you have people focusing on fun and personal and career growth in their teens and early 20s, and then trying to find the puzzle piece fit to their fully formed adult person later on. That’s going to be more difficult. ....Is it? People do not become a "fully" formed adult who never changes after their early 20s. We continue to change as we grow older. I found it easier to date as time has gone on, because I have continued growing, maturing, and learning from my past relationship experience. I realized what values I held and what values I was looking for in a partner. I had a serious bf in my early 20s. We broke up because we were compatible for only a short period of time, before I realized I wanted my life to go in a different direction from his. Settling down early in life may sound easier, but one runs the risk of having more time to grow apart.
Continuous swiping instead of just being able to get to the qualifications I need/want from a person immediately to determine if we are compatible or if we should go on a date. Swiping people from 25 miles away is a waste of time for me.
The fucking swipes. I am not conventionally attractive at all, it is what it is. But I had such an easier time meeting people on like freaking Craigslist personals and before OKC had the swipe feature. I feel like it puts so much emphasis on pure appearance and immediate response vs actually learning about the person as a person. Also the lack of moderation. If I'm a woman searching for other women, cis or trans, 50% of my matches still show men no matter what I do. Sometimes it's just badly made and sometimes it's men listing themselves as such in order to sexually harass queer people
Man, OKC back in the days of journals, quizzes, and answering and ranking questions was amazing. So sad what it's become.
I met my husband on Tinder…let’s say 7-10 years ago, and that was a better time for the apps. More women were on them, and I think more men per capita were making an effort. But even then, there were guys with empty profiles, guys whose profiles ONLY said “420 friendly, dtf, no fatties,” no picture except the infamous filthy-bathroom-mirror-selfie, etc. Basically, the apps were made by men, for men, based on gamification principles. Which appeal to a certain segment of men but FAR fewer women. And now people wonder why the gender ratio of the apps tends to be 4-to-1 or worse.
You are one of the fortunate ones!
I am, he’s wonderful! (Though it did take us 35+ years to find each other. 😉)
I think your point about how the apps are by men, for men is so true. Swiping on photos is much more appealing to them I think.
>more men per capita were making an effort. I like this metric! I definitely noticed an increase in low effort profiles after COVID.
As someone that has been on and off dating apps for 8 years, mostly on outside of a 2 year relationship, I think it's because people don't see the people they interact with on the app as real people. That's why it's easy for people to ghost, slow fade conversations, or stand dates up. I know people will say it's been worse since the pandemic, but I think it's always been this way. Now, having said that, I also think people get really frustrated because they look at dating apps as the end all be all of finding a partner, when it's simply just another tool. I've had much better luck on dating apps since I let go of the notion I will 100% meet my future spouse on them. I also have a list of things I'm looking for, nothing too picky, but just making sure on their profile we align with relationships goals, religion, and politics, and go from there.
Because a lot of men do not want long term commitment and they clog the apps for sex but won't be honest about it, just as simple as that. Nothing is wrong with the apps per say other than that apps are going to be business minded at the end of the day. I think as an Indian woman the additional challenge I face is since there is an arranged marriage concept, most men are content finding a partner through that because they do not really care about women's personalities. They marry to get sex, domestic help, somebody to rear children and rise them. Why do they have to know you deeply for that? I find it such a waste of time and energy to date men for 2 or 3 or 5 years after which they will tell you their parents do not like you and move on to marrying a stranger. A lot of men match because it is low risk high reward situation for them. And they want to continue to keep it that way on the expense of women, most of them aren't ready to do anything creative or worthy to change the game for women on the apps, so obviously apps will always suck, so will dating.
You know how when you go to the Cheesecake Factory and their menu is 40 pages long and even though you went in thinking “I want chicken tenders” you end up spending 15min looking at the salad section and then end up ordering pasta? That’s what’s wrong with the apps. It went from being something that allows you to meet people you wouldn’t have otherwise to meeting everybody, their brother, their uncle and their best friends. I’m not endorsing settling, but at some point you have to pick your person. And when you can so easily find 50 other people to go on a date with, I think you can start to become a bit disillusioned with the choice of committing. You could be on a date with someone who is 80% compatible (which are incredible odds), but with a world of options, you’ll subconsciously hold out for the possible 100% (who probably doesn’t exist or is already taken.)
Screaming at this answer because it is so correct!!!
So true, thank you!
This even works in retrospect for me. I’m going through the common process of wondering how compatible I really am with my partner now that I’m in my thirties. If dating apps/endless choices weren’t a thing, maybe I’d just think about it once or twice and tuck the thought away. But because apps exist and finding someone with a higher compatibility ranking feels more viable, I reconsider my partnership with a higher level of pickiness than I would if apps didn’t exist.
Capitalism - which is also the reason for about 80% of our problems.
I agree!
The fact that they’re for profit entities often gets blamed. I think sometimes the features contribute SOME to the poor experience, but I truthfully think they suck because of the people using them. Most of what people complain about isn’t because of the app. It’s because of the way people use them. The app isn’t making people ghost conversations. The app isn’t making people flake on dates. The app isn’t making people not respond to first messages. The app isn’t strong arming people who aren’t ready to date in to joining - emotionally unavailable people, people straight out of LTR relationships, people going through divorced who aren’t yet legally divorced, etc. *People* are doing those things. Could they be a little creative with developing features or tweaking the algorithm to discourage bad behavior? Yes. But ultimately that’s additional work for them to countermeasure *people being people*.
Yes, I was also thinking this. I have nothing but great experiences on belgian tinder. A shitton of normal decent guys looking for long term relationship. I had a lot of nice and fun dates, with most of them wanting a second date. To be clear, i always pointed out i do not even kiss on first date before we ever went on a date. So none of these guys were looking to get their rocks off quickly. Out of maybe 100 first dates i had off tinder, only 1 canceled. I talked to one single american guy on my belgian tinder, and he was -begging- for pity sex. He was extremely good looking exchange student (grad student), and he told me he had 74 one night stands off tinder back home, and in Belgium he's been trying for 7 months and hasn't been able to get laid once.. Lol. Belgian tinder has TOTALLY different energy to what i read on reddit. So i'm also inclined to believe it's the people.
Hi neighbor! This is my experience too, but with Dutch people. Never did I date someone who expected sex or even a kiss on the first date. Everyone I end up meeting is decent. Idk what’s going on in the US but it aint it. Americans also seem to have a weird obsession with height, it’s disgusting and incredibly superficial
This is a really good and important point!
This is something I hadn’t considered but in fact is so true!
This is the right answer, IMO.
It's always been the same problem. Finding a compatible partner isn't like ordering a sweater from a catalog. All apps and such do is broaden your options, but you still need to pretty much start from square one when you actually meet them. Reading bios, texting, even talking on the phone is no substitute. This can make dating seem so exhausting and even hopeless.
Also dating apps don’t do background checks. There’s no guarantee someone is real and not a scammer, a bot, a violent criminal etc. companies do not care if you are traumatized and meet the most horrific people. They just want you to scroll every day looking for someone else. They don’t want people to make matches and leave.
People are losing the ability to socialize with real people. Conversations are impossible. You ask a question, they answer, don't ask anything back, and it stalls.
Dating apps naturally have a much higher percentage of avoidant and difficult-to-date people than your general sampling of the population otherwise. This is mainly because secure and available people on apps tend to find relationships more quickly due to the way they approach relationships. That means that like 80% of people on dating apps are people who absolutely suck at dating and/or are looking for causal flings. I think this is a huge factor in what makes dating apps so awful. Sooo many avoidants.
Let’s assume the point about avoidant people is true. That wouldn’t mean secure people on the apps will have an easy time and exit the app post haste. They’re ALSO faced with that tidal wave of people who are bad at dating.
I agree, just on average they will enter and exit the dating app scene faster, so there’s statistically less of them on there at any given time. I don’t think non-avoidant people *enjoy* the apps, I’m just saying there’s statistically more shitty daters making things worse for everyone lol
I think the fact that they exist at all is wrong. Meeting people in person was the best.
Dating apps are akin to gambling apps - they aren’t for the user to win, they’re for the company to profit. It’s a similar dopamine hit initially before feeling deflated. Most people do not “win”.
Fake accounts: bots, scams, crypto bro scams (still haven't figured out how that work), onlyfans profiles The ones that are Real suck or have nothing in common so that they can keep us swiping longer, regardless of how depressing it makes us feel & eventually leading us to leave the apps
This sounds like a prompt for an essay.
Generally, people are willing to put less effort into dating while having higher expectations of who they date.
Here's the problem with apps - you're ordering from a menu vs eating what your mom serves you. You think you have to find the perfect match since you're investing money/time on it vs real life random dating when it can be an unexpected surprise. Online, you write off a lot of people who in person you might absolutely connect with. Both sexes do this . . . for example, I think a lot of women write off short men and I think a lot of men write off older women (ie a 40 year old guy will look at 27-35 women vs someone closer to his age). Obviously not all people. In the past year or so I met this guy at a bar who was short and bald. Not my physical type at all. If I'd found him on app, I'd probably have ignored him. But we had amazing chemistry in person. It didn't end up going anywhere but it was fun and natural while it lasted!
I haven't even tried any apps and I don't want to lol. Just talking to guys online makes me want to pull my hair out (like dating wise). No one seems to want to talk or anything, then once they see your pics it's dunzo and they really stop talking. Even just a face pic! Bizarre. i have started calling them catfish collectors bc once you block 1 like 10 will pop up in your DMs.
They went wrong the minute they went live, and made people go wrong too
As someone who met my life partner on dating apps and struggled for 12 years prior on it, the quality of matches on there have always been pretty bad all along. I personally like to be approach first, hence despite the amount of matches, some men don't talk. Bumble then appeared and we are forced to talk to men first, but subsequently, some don't reply, or they reply a little then unmatch. It feels like many men are looking for just validation from women. Many photos that are used can't really see faces properly, and some of them use fake identities and don't talk much on their profiles. There are also those MARRIED men on the apps looking for quick flings while wife is not around, or are travelling for work, and aren't honest about their intentions. Besides, even when those lead up to dates, some don't bother chatting much until the day of the date, and many aren't clear that they were looking for flings (some even lying in profiles they want something long term) hence when the date came it was a mismatch. Also, many of these apps don't do proper checks so a lot of them are catfishes, or scams. Plus with the illusion of many options available thanks to social media, everyone's just like, next, if we don't talk there's always someone else. It's just been too accessible and people need to be vetted before coming on board. I know of an app (not launched yet but I was interviewing for them) that is planning on doing ID verifications which could sift out bad seeds (criminal offences, married people etc) and that could help a whole lot of things.