No, it's not.

Nobody is controlling online dating. Stop with the conspiracy nonsense.

The issue with online dating is everyone wants the best they can get, but they can't get it, so they ignore realistic options and chase unrealistic ones. And they double down on this after every bad relationship, thinking they need to 'raise the bar', but all they do is price themselves out of the market by having expectations that like only 1% of the dating pool can ever measure up to.

People do this to themselves. Like the article says, their expectations for first dates are too high so they just give up, but what they won't do is 'lower their standards'. They won't accept dates that are less than $200 because they 'know what they are worth', even though very few partners can realistically afford such dates. Not to mention, the bar/cost only gets higher with time. If you expect a $200 first date, you expect a $1000 date a month or two later. So basically the only guys who can afford to date are finance bros or tech bros with massive incomes and wealth.

I had a short term girlfriend a few years ago, who broke up with me because our first 'nice' date was only $300. She expected me to spend $500 and really said if I wanted to impress her I should have spent $1000. This was just a dinner. I made about 90K a year at the time, and she made 70K... she basically expected me to spend 1/4 of my monthly pay on a single dinner..

fast forward 5 years and shit has only gotten worse.

yeah well, we were at the height of our economic power back then.

people seem to think if they just daydream hard enough they can magically have a 1950s life they see on TV.

And that any man who can't provide a 1950s lifestyle is a failure of a human being. When in reality only about 2% of the single male population has the income/wealth to provide that lifestyle these days.

it was different in the 2000s, most of my friends/family coupled up and things were better and generally couples were economic partners. now things are economically bad and dating has regressed to 1950s expectations that men are the providers and women are the takers. when i meet new women and i suggest we are financial equals, they laugh in my face and tell me I'm a sexist asshole and how I owe them because of my male privileges... and how they have worked so much 'harder' than I have and they 'deserve to be treated'. or they say they are should get 'princess treatment'.

These are all highly-educated, liberal/left women working in a major city. Lawyers, doctors, other well-paid professionals. But they are all heavy social media users and if you go on social media and see women talking about dating... you see why they think this way.