All of the dating apps have been bought out by Match Group and all enshittified in the exact same ways.

I do wonder if that'd open the door to competition, if they become sufficiently undesirable. Unless they've got some way of getting an edge over any competitors.

considers

So, dating match systems are going to be subject to network effect. Their value is something like the square of the size of their userbase. That'll create a barrier to entry for any challengers. But...I don't know if the effect is as strong as with many other systems.

• I'd assume that many users are going to be looking principally for matches in their geographical area. That's going to be a smaller pool than with, say, a global system like Facebook. The value isn't O(n²) for the entire userbase of the system, but the value to any given user is something like the squares of their particular dating market.

• It sounds like the userbase is not massive, not compared to most forms of social media.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group

  In August 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Match Group reported growing profit and revenue and surpassed 10 million subscribers across its portfolio.[48]

• Unlike, something like say, eBay, the "product" can be offered for sale on multiple systems. If I want to auction something, I can't offer it to two different pools of bidders, since two people could both win the single item. With a dating system, a user isn't forced to exclusively use a single system to bill themselves; they could use multiple concurrently, which means that they could use both an incumbent system and a challenger system. Again, makes it easier for a challenger system to get someone to use it.

• If you assume that most people are only looking for matches in their age cohort, that'd also divide up the userbase. In the past, social media systems have occasionally seen younger generations shift to newer systems.

You know, pretty soon we can become the disruptors by making products and services that fucking work. What an idea.

speak for yourself. i have a dog for 5 years. i only ever meet married people and people over 60+ at the dog park.

there are no young single people at my dog park, besides myself.

hell just walking around, in a major city, only people who are 50+ will ever stop and say hi to my dog. nobody under 40 (my own age) will interact with my dog or me, if anything often they move to the other side of the street to avoid us. but if hte person has grey/white hair they are more than happy to smile and ask to pet my dog.

Kash Patel? Is that you?

Me too: Wife and two children, meet wife on Tinder 11 years ago.

Easy to make an app, hard to get the network effect.

That's what Alovoa is supposed to be I think. It's completely free. Never tried it, but I assume it suffers from lack of users like all similar software.

There are still so many profiles that are just Instagram bait. It’s gotten to the point where i see “📸” or “@[words]” and just swipe left.

Thankfully I'm not lonely or desperate, I just wanted to see what it's all about and if it was actually useful. Don't worry, no offence taken.

Being a man on dating apps certainly makes it feel like the population of men is vastly higher than the population of women lol! I swiped right on a lot of gorgeous girls but I'm probably just one in the huge pile of other dudes who have done the same.

I wish you all the best for your health my friend.

And I met my partner there about 5 years ago. Might depend a bit on your age range and expectations. We were both in our late 40s at the time.

This is what my husband has, don’t worry tho he promises he’s not cheating on me

Grindr is over, it’s all about UberMeats

it's a lot different if you're attractive.

I had over 100+ matches

Found the best looking person on Lemmy.

Absolutely. I actually deleted Instagram years ago for that very reason. There's something about seeing thousands of pictures of beautiful women that makes you feel awful about yourself, especially if you're not in a good place mentally, which I wasn't at the time.

I was married for 20 years and then separated. While the divorce was going through, I got on the apps. It's kind of addictive to swipe through the people, read the bios and decide on whom to approach. Then when you get a match, it's a buzz (someone finds me interesting!) and you get chatting, which can be fun, flirty, or just ordinarily pleasant. When you get to meet someone, it can be anything from instantly clicking with them through to finding them deathly boring. For women, this spectrum goes deeper into "is this safe?" territory.

For me, there was a period where a long-distance relationship that started from Tinder was opened up (mutually) and I thought that polyamory was an option for me. I had a lot of matches that I had to ask whether they'd read my profile carefully, and then decided that wasn't for them, but I had more new sexual experiences than ever before in my life, and that was exciting - I learned a lot about myself, including that I really want domesticity.

Then I found myself drifting into a new committed relationship and got off the apps, and life returned to normal, which for me was a relief - I really don't miss the excitement, because dating is a major time and energy suck, and I'd rather put that energy into one person. And the new relationship (almost 5 years now) is the best I've ever had. Low conflict, high trust, lots and lots of love.