Hellscape: The decline of dating apps
The online dating scene is in shambles, said Jason Parham in Wired. It’s hard to even remember a time when connections could be made without dating apps. But “after more than a decade of swiping left,” there is growing frustration and a sense that “dating apps are broken.” A recent study from Axios and research firm Generation Lab found that 79 percent of college students are forgoing regular dating-app usage altogether “in favor of inperson connection.” Their disillusionment seems to stem from the deterioration in quality of the apps. Bumble, the revolutionary dating app that requires women to make the first move, has become “a ghost city,” according to users’ complaints. Hinge “conceals its most attractive daters behind a $50 monthly subscription tier.”
Most Tinder users aren’t even single. And other apps are “crawling with bots and scammers.”
Dating apps “might claim they want to help users find love, but to make money, they also need users to keep coming back for more,” said Leah Asmelash in CNN.com. That’s the inherent problem with dating apps. Their simple design—“it’s easy to find love!”—is deceptive. “Even if you match with a variety of people—sparking optimism—the probability of actually connecting with that person is relatively low.” That kindles a sense of alienation and depression, which can inspire even more stabs at online dating—spinning forth a “delete and redownload cycle.” Faced with dwindling users, Bumble and Match Group (which owns Tinder, Match.com, and OKCupid) plan “to crank up the monetization,” said Dave Lee in Bloomberg. Bumble asks $269.99 for lifetime membership, seemingly looking for a big payment up front instead of monthly fees that most people will abandon fairly quickly. Tinder offers a $500-a-month option that gives users the grotesque ability to “message anyone they want, regardless of reciprocity.” The League, a newer Match Group app that says it “caters to a more refined clientele,” charges its subscribers $100 a week. A week! “I’d rather invest that kind of money in an apartment in which to die alone.”
Still, dating apps make it possible “to fall in love with people we would not have met otherwise,” said Youyou Zhou in The Washington Post. I met my boyfriend on a dating app. “I’m Asian, he’s white. Before using dating apps, I had exclusively dated guys of my own background.” If I hadn’t gone online, “the chances of me meeting my partner would have been vanishingly small.” I know I’m not alone. “Couples that meet online are more likely to be interracial and interethnic,” lending credence to the theory that “online dating is at least partially responsible for the uptick of interracial marriage.” Dating apps are frustrating for individuals, but they are “arguably very good for society as a whole.”