Dating apps can be extremely frustrating, especially for those who are familiar with their common tricks and gimmicks. What’s especially galling is that the concept is so simple: connecting people within a specified vicinity and giving them the tools to quickly and efficiently appraise one another and allow matches deemed fitting by the selected filters. But there’s a rather glaring issue with dating apps as a concept: maximizing user retention without betraying core principles.
After all, Hinge used to advertise itself as “the app designed to be deleted,” implying it wantsusers gone as soon as possible, but this would hardly make apps like Hinge a commercial success. Free apps need users for ads and valuable data; it’s not like tantalizing paywalls and premium subscriptions will keep folks around. So, how do these apps keep users around in their search for a soulmate? By making the services long-winded, sketchy, unreliable, and targeted to exploit those on the lowest rung of the algorithm chain. Things like catfishing bots, targeted account throttling, and the ever-present temptation to go premium all put extra strain on the awkward practice of finding romantic partners on your phone.
But at least these services used to operate to their own tune, often keeping their algorithmic learnings reasonably transparent, like OK Cupid’s many learnings now gone forever. WhenMatch Group, a Dallas-based tech company with an appetitefor personal data, began systematically buying out the biggest players in the dating app scene, the rigged system we were already familiar with gave up on subtlety altogether.
Apropos of nothing, the data collection figures of Match Group’s dating apps have become much harder to locate and calculate, exposing how the data acquired by these services could be weaponized against its less successful users. Useful information like how Match Group’s apps contain a majority male userbase or how ladies spend (on the whole) more time appraising each profile before they swipe (unlikemostguys who spam it like a quick-time event) is all but hidden now. It’s obvious why Match Group doesn’t want its users to have this data, given how it exposes the whole practice as a waste of time, rewarding your daily swipes with throttling and fraud. The cloak-and-dagger approach of hiding useful data when you are looking to find matches would be bad enough if Match weren’t so nosy about you and your data.
Apps like Tinder and OkCupid collect the data of those using their services, such as daily swipes, daily matches, and even what those matches lead to, making notes when you’ve had a one-night stand. These apps also track your activity elsewhere, like your Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) content. This is supposedly carried out in order to tailor the dating app experience to the user and increase the likelihood of compatible matches. Aside from this being incredibly creepy, the algorithm doesn’t account for spam swiping; how are you supposed to glean a person’s preferences when they say yes to everything?
Withholding matches in your area to keep you swiping to coax you towards Premium
It also doesn’t help that dating apps use visibility throttling to incentivize constant user engagement,. Withholding matches in your area to keep you swiping in order to coax you towards Premium. This links up with the many bots and spam accounts, presenting non-paying users with tons of matches that amount to nothing because they either aren’t real or simply exist to serve as ads for exterior services like OnlyFans. It’s telling how the number of matches in your area drops when you fork out for Premium and how many of these matches just so happen to be real people.
Despite all these downsides and the cards being stacked against me, as a fairly recent Tinder success story, I can admit Match Group’s acquired services can work, but only after months of glorified data entry work, more like a second job than anything else. After a while, the negative reinforcement drives you to keep swiping out of desperation to beat the algorithm, not even bothering to study up on who you are reaching out to because it’s most likely a robot you want out of the way as soon as possible. The more bots you smack aside, the greater the chance you might find someone real. This appears to be the general concept of these dating apps, and it barely works.
Thereisa reason people drift to and from Match Group’s dating apps: you continually spin the reel to get lucky, creating the same unhealthy mentality as gambling, something modern mobile apps and games know a whole lot about. You aren’t using a service designed to match you with your next casual or serious relationship; you’re spinning a slot machine that only accepts time, data, and, most importantly, money, and this has become more pronounced than ever, thanks to Match Group.
