After my divorce, I decided to give dating apps a try. I went on a few dates and, although I met some wonderful women, I found the whole process exhausting and extremely inefficient. For me, the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. I spent hours scrolling, sending hundreds of messages, dealing with ghosting, waiting hours or even days for responses, and finally, when I met a woman in person, I often realized we weren’t a good match.
Success Stories Amid the Struggles
However, as a dance teacher, I’ve met many couples who met through dating apps. Good for them—many seem happy, and some even got married.
But I believe that most people feel frustrated, as I did, and they are deleting the apps from their phones and computers, or at the very least, they don’t want to pay for the service.
Investors Take Note: They are not seeing the growth
From an investor’s point of view, this is worrisome. Revenues are not growing any more, if people don’t want to pay, then what’s the point of owning the stock. And this lack of paying members growth is being reflected in the stock prices.
As we can see, while the S&P 500 has risen by 33% over the past 12 months, dating stocks are lagging behind.
Match Group, which is the largest and most established player, has a portfolio of over 20 brands. Each brand is targeted towards specific types of online dating or to certain demographic groups (i.e. Tinder for short-term hook-ups, Hinge for long-term relationships, etc.)
is up only 1%.
Bumble, known for its female-first approach, is down 54%.
Grindr, which focuses mostly on gay and bisexual men hooking up, is up 100%.
So, what’s happening here?
The Reality for Men on Dating Apps
What I hear is that if you’re a good-looking man, you have all the options. Most women will want to date you. If you’re in the top 10% of attractive men, you could essentially have your pick. 50% of the women are liking your profile.
If you’re in the top 50%, you have a decent chance of finding a partner. If you’re in the bottom 50%, you’re likely to struggle and may end up alone.
Why Bumble’s Approach May Be Struggling
I suspect Bumble is not succeeding because, despite the emphasis on female empowerment, many women still prefer to be approached rather than to make the first move. Historically, men have always been the ones to initiate, and they’ve learned to handle rejection. For women, this is a relatively new shift, and many are still adjusting to the idea of occasional rejection.
User Fatigue and Conflicts of Interest
In general, except for Grindr, people aren’t finding what they’re looking for, and many users are dissatisfied. According to various industry sources, the number of daily app users is just not growing.
There’s also an inherent conflict of interest between dating apps and their users. Clients want to find love and leave the app, but the apps profit when you don’t find a match, and they keep you as a paying customer for as long as possible.
Gen Z and the Future of Dating
Demographic studies show that generation Z (those aged 12 to 27) is showing less interest in traditional dating compared to previous generations. They are prioritizing mental health, personal goals, and self-development.
From an economic perspective, the cost of housing is also a serious issue. It’s hard to date someone when you’re living in your parents’ basement or juggling two jobs. Many young people finish their regular day job only to start driving for Uber or work another side hustle just to pay the rent. These challenges make dating less of a priority.
Generation Z is supposed to represent the future of dating, but through dating apps some social norms are changing. Many young men are feeling disengaged or left out, with women under 30 often dating men over 30. Around 64% of men under 30 are single. On the other end of the spectrum, older women are also having difficulty finding partners, with 70% of women over 60 being single. Clearly, there’s a mismatch in dating demographics.
So if this generation feels less enthusiastic about dating or can’t afford to pay for dating apps, the future for these apps seems bleak.
Conclusion:
The outlook for dating apps doesn’t seem promising, mostly because the dating market is not growing. In the stock market, if you’re not growing, there’s little incentive for investors to buy your stock. They would rather put their money in a certificate of deposit than in companies that aren’t growing.
What’s your opinion on the future of dating? Would you pay for a dating app? Would you invest in a dating app?
Opinion from members of my community.
Nathalia: I paid for a dating app for about one year, then I found a partner outside the dating apps. I don’t think people have any choice other that to use dating apps. It’s so hard to meet other people for dating.
Lindsay: I have never paid for dating app and I have met many cool people.
Lucy: I’ve used dating apps in the past, both paid and free. I’m going to say that my experience was overall negative due to the lack of quality or genuine people on the app. I also feel that apps didn’t regularly cull the profiles of inactive users, making their dating pool seem larger than it actually was. Very classic bait and switch. I stopped paying after the first month because I did not feel that I was getting any more value from the paid app as from the free one. I do, however, know people who have gotten lucky to find their mate through a paid experience. It is possibly a numbers game.
Jenny: I have only been in the free versions.
They don’t have ads, but they will limit a lot of the functionalities (filtering your search, or how many profiles you are shown per day) that you are kinda forced into paying, especially if you’re not the patient type of user.
There are extra features if you pay that they encourage to use since it will get your profile on top, more visibility and more promised success (similar to LinkedIn premium « preying » on desperate job seekers).
What’s more interesting is that once these apps notice that you’re off the apps (for whatever reason), they keep track and send you constant notifications and ads to your phone, or social media accounts. Hinge’s slogan is «meant to be deleted » but they’re not very happy when you do that 😁
Jonathan: I have used multiple different apps and always paid for each. Women are the product, and men are the consumers.
Without a paid subscription, men’s profiles are displayed last, well after the women have reached their “swipe limit.”
My strategy was to pay the maximum amount for one month on an app and manage this subscription fully. After 30 days, the “pool” was pretty much exhausted, so I canceled and switched to another app, paying the maximum there as well.
An app is software, and software and algorithms are created and controlled by those who profit from them.
Overall, my experience was not as bad as everyone else claims. It seems trendy to say dating apps suck because people claim to be unique, unlike everyone they meet.
To those people, I’d like to offer a mirror (no offense to anyone who thinks this way).
So, I focused on more serious apps, avoiding Tinder, and rotated them monthly as the pool renewed.
I had very few dates, about one every two months, but I never encountered crazy women or walking red flags like I hear from others.
Some of my friends have 2-3 dates per week for a series of weeks, yet they always complain that the women have baggage or other issues.
I rarely matched, probably because I’m not as photogenic, or my profile was more serious. But I only met quality people.
Most of the time, it didn’t work out romantically, but they were nice women.
The deciding factor to stop paying was when my one-month subscription ended. I’d switch to a new app and start again as a “fresh candidate.” I stopped paying for any apps once I met someone.
I understand I’m privileged with a good income, but people often don’t invest their money wisely. $40 a month to possibly meet love isn’t even the cost of one dinner.
If I use apps again, I’ll pay the maximum amount to ensure the algorithm works in my favor.
Dexter: Found my girlfriend/wife. Then stopped using. Success for me, failure for the company 🤣
Francis: I used dating apps, both free and paid version, I had a negative experience as a starter till the time I realized you have to be really specific about what you are looking for in order to remove the noise (you can easily go down a rabbit hole and meet with irrelevant people if you are unaware of what you are looking for. I met my current Girlfriend on a dating app, so I guess I end up with a positive experience ;).
I actually not really decided to stop paying, I paid on the impulsion of the moment then I had buyer remorse, so I simply stop at the end of the term.
Dating from the point of view of a man, under 30.
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