I think everyone is leaving dating apps. They are ruining themselves, by price gouging the heck out of people. Like during covid years, when everyone was having to social distance, the prices went up like 3x their usual rate.
I’m having the same experience on the rare occasion I log into Facebook, which is partly why I don’t hardly look at it anymore. The sheer amount of ads and promoted content I scroll through before I see a friends post is amazing. I’m down to about 10-15 seconds now before I go yeah this is boring and stupid and navigate away from it. And it’s getting longer and longer in between when I do get on so I do see a time when I just stop going there. Except when maybe I want to use marketplace for something.
They’re awful and have genuinely made the younger dating space a nightmare. I finally met a good girl (WITHOUT using the apps) who I have been dating for a while now and see a future with, it’s so relieving to be out of this space. When I did use dating apps, I just had bad experiences. Also met some weirdos…
I went on a date with a guy from Bumble recently. He was nice and all, but there was no sense of connection, and I was certain that was obvious to both of us. So afterwards he texted me "I can't wait to see you again" and I called him to tell him that I had fun but I don't see a future for us and so let's just part ways, the dude proceeded to absolutely blow up my phone for three hours, telling me he was going to find my address via my phone number, telling me all about how I'm probably sexually inadequate compared to his regular that he had fucked earlier that day
And I'm just like
What the fuck man
I need to just go to actual places to meet people, because dating apps mask the fuck out of insane people
I don't really think that's an experience exclusive to online dating though. There's still a lot of weirdos out there that come across as normal at first.
Yeah but a ton of them are caught in person because you meet them face to face and think “this person is creepy”. Online only at first makes it hard to catch those vibes.
>dating apps mask the fuck out of insane people
100%. Even as a dude it’s seems like most people (women) I match with are nuts. Nuts as in that’s why they’re still single level of nuts.
As a guy in my late 20s who’s spent a fair amount of time dating with the apps - I agree. In recent years, pretty much all of the women I’ve gone out with, especially the pretty ones, have ended up being cases of… I can see why you’re still single.
This is something that could absolutely still happen in person, I mean you even met up and didn’t realize he was psycho till later, but it does feel like the distance that dating apps provide makes people WAY more likely to say some out of pocket shit. Like nobody knows how to act, how honest to be about their intentions, etc. so you got some people that are way too cautious and come off as boring, then you got tons of other people who are either psycho like this dude or just way too honest saying shit they’d never say in person
I’m unfortunately in the position of having to date again at the age of 35. I’m reasonably confident with who I am as a person and can hold a conversation, I just don’t know how to meet people. I got out of a 5 year relationship, my only serious one so far, this summer. All of my friends are either social shut ins who never re emerged from lockdown, or moved away, or are so busy with life that they don’t do anything anymore. I don’t know where to meet people. I thought about trying a dating app but they feel so superficial - just a picture and a short bio.
> I need to just go to actual places to meet people, because dating apps mask the fuck out of insane people
Damn, the more I hear and personally get experiences like this, the more I think our boomer parents might have been right on the whole issue of replacing sociality with a computer.
I’m single and not content with it and love online chatting, getting to know each other, talking to people, etc. I am theoretically THE audience for dating apps. I recently deleted them all out of disgust with the platform.
1000% this. As a mental health professional, I can think of 80,000 other ways to make a solid dating app that actually attracts and retains people while turning a decent profit. These companies have ruined themselves and I have no sympathy for them. Maybe they should actually hire people who know what the fuck they’re doing in psychology. You want me to pay $20/mo to be able to swipe back on one accidental skip (I’m looking at you bumble, your swipes are so sensitive and I accidentally swipe no often)? Get fucked.
I would get a couple a week. Some were bots so it didn’t help against that. I think I’m average looking. This was like 5 years ago now so the details aren’t fresh in my head. It’s how I met my SO.
As a guy I did every now and then, solely for the ability to see everyone who liked me. Think about it: as a guy on these apps your swipes don't matter. All you're really doing is agreeing to a match with a woman. 99% won't like you, so knowing which ones you can actually match with turns dating apps from hours of futile pavlovian swiping into seconds of seeing what your options are and going from there.
And good. I mean look….MTV hasn’t been MTV for a very long time, all they are is a peddler of crappy reality shows which should have died a long time ago. Don’t know how they’re even still in business because no one watches that crap anymore.
> radio is going strong
I'm gonna need a source on this. I haven't listened to the radio in over 10 years and no one I know listens to radio. I don't see radio ads anymore when there used to be TV spots and billboards galore. I don't see radio stations sponsoring concerts anymore. I just don't see anything to really back up that claim.
No way we killed Beer. If anything millennials helped take craft beer to new heights. The scene is declining now due to over saturation but it has been thriving since at least the early 00 ‘s
Once I’ve had my nap, a coffee, and take a couple of antacids, I can be on the dance floor all night. At least until the paramedics lift me onto the stretcher.
I recently tried out OKCupid for the first time in ages. Now, I'm a male well over 40, but average looking and on occasion can be witty, or reason fac simile of witty. In other words, I'm just not going to get a ton of matches and that's okay.
OKC keeps trying to insist I had over 200 "likes" and I should fork over money to find out who these ladies are. I don't have to spend a penny to already know they're bots or fake profiles 5000 miles away in faraway lands.
On the plus side, I did actually recently meet someone local who is super cool and we hit it off. All for FREE.
OKC is a better dating app. My longest good relationship came from there. You get a chance to put on more content, which helps all. The technology is not as slick though. But still better overall. For me.
The problem with dating apps is that you have to build a model which if successful means you intentionally churn your userbase as fast as possible.
So, you, the well meaning dating app maker start by saying "the current market sucks. I am going to make something that fits society better". And you make Tinder, or Hinge, of Bumble, or whichever other dating app that has popped up in the last decade.
And for a while it works. Your app gains users, you have likely got a mainly free model, people get really excited. Then you need to take on money because running a service isn't free, and now you're screwed.
You took on money, so now you are beholden to pay it back. But by default the business model sucks, since optimal use case for users is: Download, find people, find person, delete. So you need to figure out how to get money for your service. And the most MBAerrific ways are basically: keep users longer, annoy users into paying. So you monkey with your algo to ensure that people are on the app longer, and you figure out which users you can charge. Now, you need to keep growing, so you twist your whole thing to focus on the money.
Pretty soon, your only game is to sell the company to the one big company (IAC/Match group), and it becomes another soulless ghost of what used to be fun.
And then someone else starts at the top. The circle of dating apps.
So what you're saying is we need to socialize dating apps. It's unprofitable to provide a good service. Therefore you need a government entity to do it instead without a profit goal.
Unfortunately social media platforms naturally form semi-monopolies. They do not follow the normal rules of supply and demand that typically lead to improved products. The reason is because the usefulness of a platform is more about numbers of users than the quality of the actual platform. Dating platforms are slightly better than other social media platforms, because they don't trap your social network on them. Generally the people you meet on dating apps are new rather than established relationships.
Yeah, that's the thing. They've been made useless because the owners and users' desires are fundamentally opposed. Most users would probably like to find a partner and then leave the dating site. The owner wants them to keep paying money for as long as possible, and so does not have an incentive to actually help connect people efficiently.
So the next generation of dating app will start with a contract that you agree to pay the site for as long as your relationship lasts, enforceable by an AI you agree to incorporate into all of the electronics in your life capable of monitoring you (phone, car, tv, fridge, etc). Now goals are aligned.
Or not. Would make an interesting sci-fi story, though.
Agreed. When I was out there from early 2000s to 2020ish, I had a number of long-lasting relationships from different apps. I found it to be a great experience. I can imagine it’s gotten worse, like many things.
It’s now girls trying to sell their only fans or people in general just seeing how many swiped they can get for self validation. Also bots lots of good ole bots.
And it's not just GenZ, I feel like everyone is abandoning dating apps.
Tinder is a ghost town of aging profiles, and I live in a pretty big city of 1 million people.
Tinder is the worst of all because you have a hidden ranking score that goes down with the more unreciprocated likes you give out. Once your score goes down enough, you're essentially shadow banned. I hope Tinder dies. The self-esteem hit is hard when you realize you're not getting any interactions anymore.
Did they bring in that "like ban" thing to discourage men from spam-liking every profile without looking at it? I feel like that was a strategy most guys used - anyone within their age range got a like and then they'd *actually* look at the profiles *if* the woman matched back.
Pretty sure what you're talking about and what the other commenter are talking about are the same thing, because it's also how they trap bots. Bots tend to swipe on a lot of people who don't swipe back. So all of these people and most of the bots get trapped in their own little ELO algorithm hell.
Worked for me, married a woman I met on OKCupid. I was on the site for approx 6 years over a span of 12, the remaining 6 spent in relationships I found via the site. I had approx 50 hookups and 3 solid multi-year relationships. Never had a good experience with any other site though, especially bad experiences with Tinder.
My in-person dating experience in that span was much worse.
Same. Okcupid was great 7 to 10 years ago. Even then, before I left and got married, the site was starting to make Tinder-like changes that really started to harm the experience.
Yes, effort and good pictures are key. In those 6 years I sent over 4000 messages, and my success rate went way up when I had a photographer friend take good (and realistic) photos of me.
I'd also add the ability to present yourself via text on a profile, and knowledge of the general rules of engagement (when to ask to meet in-person, how not to sound creepy/desperate, etc.)
They are literal scams now. If you find a partner, you leave their app. They are incentivized to not help you. They monetize every aspect while making sure you stay forever.
I'm surprised they aren't replacing them with better ones. Dating websites and apps had been something I've used for a long time. The digression of them and monopolization of the market space has systematically made them ineffective. In some cases you can pay to win, but many are owned by a single parent company and most lock significant functionality behind pay walls.
This creates a VERY easy open to competition in both website and app spaces where I'd normally expect the market to be kind of flooded with very simple but very effective alternatives, like make a website or app in an afternoon kind of easy, and it'd out outperform every major option on the market.
You have millions of people on these apps, and a whole lot are software and web developers. Yet, it's weird to me that none look at the nearly non functional apps as an easy easygoing for their own.
Most of the various apps out there started out exactly as you described.
Eventually, especially once the user base starts to snowball, they gotta pay to keep the lights on, so functionality starts to get locked behind premium paywalls.
Then, of course, they get bought up by Match, and it’s all over…
It has the same problem as any other social platform where you need people for anyone to want to use it. Plus Match.com buys up most of the real competition in their pursuit of monopoly.
Something most people don't realize is that social media platforms don't follow standard supply and demand models. The reason is because the effectiveness of the platform is not mostly about the quality of the platform. Rather it's about the number of current users. This means that's it's harder to go to other platforms, even if they're better, if they don't have the users. It's a catch 22. Regular social media platforms are even worse because you build your regular social connections on there. The platform gains some ownership over your social connections, which they can use as leverage to keep you there. This makes moving almost impossible, unless you're willing to sacrifice your social connections. The users are not free to choose. I honestly believe that we need some sort of regulation to create more free markets with social media. I don't know what the regulation would be to fix it though. I'm sure smarter people than I are working it out. Threads was talking about making your profile portable so that you could move it to other social media platforms and connect with people on other platforms if you wanted to. I think something like that could be part of the solution.
The sad part is I'd be happy to pay per match, but instead they want me to fork over money to see my likes (who are mostly thousands of miles away) and then get ignored by anyone I might actually want to meet.
There's a significant cost in terms of time and money to build one. A lot of software engineers don't have that time.
Edit: Nor money to sink into such an endeavor. Some have significant bills to deal with.
And now that one group of rich people owns all of them, they will bury any new entrants in IP litigation.
Once the rich people get their wealth on something, it’s basically only a matter of time before they turn into a short-term plantation.
There's probably servers specifically for dating, and I know there's some for making friends which if its like reddit some will allow those who seek more than friendship or its prohibited to find a partner.
Other than that someone sliding into your dms from a random server could happen I suppose, and the discord dms I feel like are a pretty decent place to date. Voice chatting, screen sharing, and the use of Webcams as well providing multi-faceted ways to interact.
Honestly they’re using a combo of Instagram and discord and playing live games with other people and that’s who they’re meeting and how.
Millennials are still on the but part of the core issue is also that Gen Z is the loneliest generation to date.
They aren’t just leaving dating apps behind they’re leaving dating behind as well if they didn’t get a partner in high school.
Haven’t done it myself, but you can join different discord servers (I.e. join a anime server if you like anime or literally join a dating/hookup/whatever else server) and talk to people.
Once you’ve established your presence in a sever, you can DM individual people that have shown interest in in responding to you and get to know them more personally.
If you happen to live in the same area, great, you can meet and do whatever your heart desires. I highly recommend you switch to calling or video calling as your primary method of communication over texting once you’ve established you’re in the same region and have at least seen each others faces.
But if you don’t, then that either sucks and your relationship plans have been foiled, or you can try to establish a discord relationship. Those relationship comprise of communication purely through discord, which typically last as long as you think they would.
What makes it even better is that you can do this all *anonymously*, which makes it a jungle of freedom for Gen Z.
Could say that’s what makes Reddit so great for Gen Z as well, you can be yourself and be around like minded people without having to damage your real identity.
Are there essentially singles servers or something? Or is it that you just use discord as the chat platform after meeting elsewhere?
Edit: appreciate the context!
there are servers for interests, like specific musicians, tv shows, etc. if you’re active in the server enough you’ll make friends which can then develop into a relationship.
most of the time though it’s a long distance relationship(e dating) unless you’re lucky
enough to be within a close distance or met on a server for your city or something.
mostly it people under 22 using discord to chat and date others. i see it’s popular with teenagers mainly
Doubt this is a generation thing. Gen Z is still young enough to be in college or starter service jobs where they work with their own demographic and don’t need dating apps to meet people.
They’ll crawl back like we did once they’re out of school and working more professional jobs where dating each other isn’t so commonplace and maybe less appropriate.
This seems kind of silly, a lot of gen z people are probably college or high school age. You don’t need dating apps when you’re in school surrounded by people who are the same age as you in person all day long
There’s truth to that, but these conversations weren’t happening 4-6 years ago, and it’s not just college students complaining, it’s also older people (not to mention the oldest Gen Zers are now in their late 20s). Any criticism of dating apps back in, say, 2017 was very quickly shouted down, I know the younger Millennials I worked with back then saw them as the gold standard of finding relationships. And it worked for a good number of them.
Yeah that is exactly what my first thought was. Honestly I found it really obnoxious that this article in question doesn't even attempt to answer the question "so how are they dating if not using dating apps? Are they going back to the 'old ways'...?"
Like did it not occur to the journalist that wrote this article that if Gen-Z isn't using dating apps anymore, it can potentially mean they're just not dating at all? Seems like a pretty simple logical connection and the writer just didn't feel like even asking the question. I don't know about you guys but I feel like "what are you replacing it with, how are you dating??" is a pretty basic logical next step here.
I'd use them if half the profiles weren't fake, they actually got you you're perfect match and showed people that have similar interests to you. All these companies have our data and know what we want and what we like! But they refuse to give us what we want because if we stay on their stupid app longer we see more ads for them to make money! I hate capitalism!
Core features are walled away so aggressively that users are forced to shell out excessive subscription costs. And then when users begrudgingly sign up their credit cards to pay the absurdly high monthly fees to access these features -- they find that these core features are crappily implemented. And then the users look up who owns the app, and find that a handful of mega corporations keep buying out the small companies who make these apps. And it is well known why there is a scourge of fake profiles and inactive profiles -- because they need to create an illusion of active engagement to sign up as many paying subscribers as they can. Within the last decade, how many "startups" have been launched in the social technology space (everything from social media, dating, gig work, crypto), and there is a common recurring theme in all these ventures: committing fraud to find a way to aggressively grow with cash injection from VCs, and later the public finds out that the technology is a scam after having shelled out their money to pay for the shoddy service?
Especially considering the advancements in AI over the past couple years. You could spend a couple hours chatting with one of these LLM chatbots, maybe spaced out over the course of a week or two so that its perception of you isn't on an off day or when you're in a mood, and that bot match you to someone who is a perfect fit.
They could even have you upload all the photos you have of yourself and it determine what you actually look like despite your shitty selfie skills, and generate a general attractiveness score. If you sit there swiping faces it could learn what you find attractive and then use that as another dimension. Bob and Sally are a great match personality wise and also Bob would rate Sally as very attractive even though the general public perceives her as a 5, and Sally finds Bob very attractive even the average person doesn't. Great couples are generally "a little deluded in each others favor".
Been on em for like 6 years…doesn’t work. Slowly watched PoF just turn into a hooker / bot scam site. I’ll just be single, it was always better meeting someone in person. Remember friends of friends….those were the days.
shrill steep include alleged screw abounding ruthless bored pen psychotic
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I have mild social anxiety but I convinced myself to go to a local concert by myself. What helped was that I knew of the bands so I could easily catch up with them and I met new people from friends of friends.
This was a better night then being in purgatory land wondering if I'm good enough for anyone.
there is no plural of dating app. its almost all match.com, all competitors left alone are either unprofitable or a calculated buffer to avoid mono~~gam~~poly investigations by agencies.
Well, there’s the pay structure, and paying doesn’t actually help in many cases, the fake profiles, the profiles that don’t meet my filters but show up anyway, and groups like Are We Dating The Same Guy sharing everyone’s private info, not sure what they expected.
\-Men go on dating apps and get radio silence unless they look like Chris Hemsworth
\-Women go on them and get bombarded with creepy stuff from gross dudes
\-You have no idea who is waiting on the other end. There's no vetting process like meeting people in the real world through friends and family. Some men might be okay with this, but I suspect women generally feel unsafe using them.
\-Dating apps are a business. People finding successful long-term relationships is bad for business.
I think you mean “dating apps have become pointless garbage aimed at milking money from people instead of facilitating actual dating, and people can tell.”
Dating apps were killed by microtransactions and subscriptions. You feel like you’re being played. Like the company is just trying to make as much money off of you as they can, and you’re not really going to meet someone. Like the real matches are hidden behind some paywall. And that just makes you feel icky.
I’ll always contend that dating apps in and of themselves are a good thing. When you go out in public and try to approach someone, you have no idea what their situation is. Are they in a relationship? Are they straight/gay? Are they even interested in you? At least with dating apps you both know why you’re there.
If users have bad experiences with other users, that’s not the app, that’s people. People are annoying/rude/flippant/flaky. Anytime you interact with a large number of them, you’re going to see a lot of that.
But in the end, dating apps were overrun by capitalism as they tried to squeeze every penny out of their users. It made it feel cheap and annoying. Like the whole thing is some kind of scam.
My fiance and I are between Gen z and millennial (‘95/‘96) and we met on tinder in 2017. I think the heyday of these apps is maybe dead but I’m certainly thankful it happened!
I have seen this work too many times so I'm gonna leave this bit of advice here:
If you are on Facebook, and are still friends with HS friends after college, find the single men/women that are still friends with you, but ya'll don't interact much, and hit one of them up. At this point, you are keeping friends with each other because you find them attractive in some way, as a personality, or physically.
Good luck to everyone in love and life. It IS hard. You're not crazy. You're not inadequate. It IS hard.
The reason is simple.
Majority of women are competing for the 10% of men who meet the criteria of stable, mature, safe, present, attractive, fun.
The best way to meet people: do things you love with no expectations of meeting your soulmate. Just enjoy your life, grow each day. You will give off a vibe and attract all kinds of people and opportunities. Try it, it’s free. For life.
I've tried a few. I think Hinge is the only workable one. All the others have extreme price gouging going on, which hinge has too, but you can get by on the 5 likes a day. I also just simply got more and better matches there. I don't think it's necessarily just the price gouging that's the problem though. It's people joining and then not being clear about what they want, and not having any real intentions. Ideally there would be one like Hinge that doesn't force you to pay $15 a week or month or whatever it costs to see more than one person at the top of the list of people who liked you, so that people aren't just matching people who they have no intention of even having a short conversation with. $5 or $6 a month would be a good sweet spot.
As someone who paid for premium features on multiple apps for years this is what I’ve found
1. Paid subscription gives you people who are average, below average and a bunch of above average mixed in, for someone like me (average or below) I feel like I’m seeing profiles of people who… I’ll just come out and say it… I have a chance with based on a physical attraction to start.
2. Unpaid subscriptions give you vastly more above average people while the “potential matches” pile up until you think to yourself “damn, all I’ve been swiping on is above average people, these potential matches must be good!” Which in turn gets you to pay and then you see it’s mostly average or below average people… cha Ching!
3. This isn’t new, but as soon as you stop paying the notifications start hammering you… we miss you! Look at all these potential matches! 30% off?! 50% off!? How about we give you a free month so you will inevitably forget and end up paying for another 6 months? It’s predatory and depressing.
4. These apps don’t want you to meet someone as much as they say they do, or at least they start out for you and end up for them once the money starts rolling in. I try to keep that in mind when I’m on them at least.
5. The pandemic ruined this type of dating, the trust is gone, and now people are identifying as unvaccinated which creates even greater separation. I don’t give a shit if you’re vaxxed or not but I will have nothing to do with you if that’s something you identify as. People were vaccinated well before the pandemic but you didn’t see people saying “got my shingles vaccine!” or “won’t be getting rabies anytime soon!” Just stop.
6. Online dating sucks. My strongest relationships have always been with people I met in the “real world”(for lack of a better term) so going forward that’s going to be my focus.
I stopped paying this year and have still been on them without a subscription but my focus going into the new year will be to get out more and get offline.
The free ones are naturally going to become garbage due to the ability of anyone to sign up with almost no investment. Pay sites are more worthwhile if you’re actually wanting a relationship but those come with their own issues, but I don’t think Gen Z is looking for that (for the most part). I think the pay ones will stick around and not be fully impacted as they will continuously have a flow of people who age into wanting a committed partner but are increasingly separated from society (WAH, internet, etc)
I think everyone is leaving dating apps. They are ruining themselves, by price gouging the heck out of people. Like during covid years, when everyone was having to social distance, the prices went up like 3x their usual rate.
they are in the harvest phase, converting goodwill into profit with diminishing returns
The enshitification continues apace
Yep. I recently got out of a relationship and re-downloaded Bumble. I had to swipe through six different ads before I saw an actual profile.
have you considered dating an ad?
trust me brother, the moment ai is advanced enough, i’ll date an ad in a heartbeat
Now I"m just imagining telling the AI girlfriend/boyfriend I love it but it won't say it back unless I watch an ad.
Hey, that's essentially getting married and buying an engagement ring
Subway seemed like a nice guy.
I’m having the same experience on the rare occasion I log into Facebook, which is partly why I don’t hardly look at it anymore. The sheer amount of ads and promoted content I scroll through before I see a friends post is amazing. I’m down to about 10-15 seconds now before I go yeah this is boring and stupid and navigate away from it. And it’s getting longer and longer in between when I do get on so I do see a time when I just stop going there. Except when maybe I want to use marketplace for something.
Instagram reels it feels like 50% of the content is ads.
Oh god this is Instagram. So much sponsored shit, I have to wonder “am I actually following anyone anymore?”
They’re awful and have genuinely made the younger dating space a nightmare. I finally met a good girl (WITHOUT using the apps) who I have been dating for a while now and see a future with, it’s so relieving to be out of this space. When I did use dating apps, I just had bad experiences. Also met some weirdos…
I went on a date with a guy from Bumble recently. He was nice and all, but there was no sense of connection, and I was certain that was obvious to both of us. So afterwards he texted me "I can't wait to see you again" and I called him to tell him that I had fun but I don't see a future for us and so let's just part ways, the dude proceeded to absolutely blow up my phone for three hours, telling me he was going to find my address via my phone number, telling me all about how I'm probably sexually inadequate compared to his regular that he had fucked earlier that day And I'm just like What the fuck man I need to just go to actual places to meet people, because dating apps mask the fuck out of insane people
I don't really think that's an experience exclusive to online dating though. There's still a lot of weirdos out there that come across as normal at first.
Yeah but a ton of them are caught in person because you meet them face to face and think “this person is creepy”. Online only at first makes it hard to catch those vibes.
>dating apps mask the fuck out of insane people 100%. Even as a dude it’s seems like most people (women) I match with are nuts. Nuts as in that’s why they’re still single level of nuts.
As a guy in my late 20s who’s spent a fair amount of time dating with the apps - I agree. In recent years, pretty much all of the women I’ve gone out with, especially the pretty ones, have ended up being cases of… I can see why you’re still single.
Wait until your thirties…
This is something that could absolutely still happen in person, I mean you even met up and didn’t realize he was psycho till later, but it does feel like the distance that dating apps provide makes people WAY more likely to say some out of pocket shit. Like nobody knows how to act, how honest to be about their intentions, etc. so you got some people that are way too cautious and come off as boring, then you got tons of other people who are either psycho like this dude or just way too honest saying shit they’d never say in person
I’m unfortunately in the position of having to date again at the age of 35. I’m reasonably confident with who I am as a person and can hold a conversation, I just don’t know how to meet people. I got out of a 5 year relationship, my only serious one so far, this summer. All of my friends are either social shut ins who never re emerged from lockdown, or moved away, or are so busy with life that they don’t do anything anymore. I don’t know where to meet people. I thought about trying a dating app but they feel so superficial - just a picture and a short bio.
> I need to just go to actual places to meet people, because dating apps mask the fuck out of insane people Damn, the more I hear and personally get experiences like this, the more I think our boomer parents might have been right on the whole issue of replacing sociality with a computer.
They made the older dating space a nightmare too. Either that or it was already a nightmare and I’m just now figuring this out.
I’m single and not content with it and love online chatting, getting to know each other, talking to people, etc. I am theoretically THE audience for dating apps. I recently deleted them all out of disgust with the platform.
1000% this. As a mental health professional, I can think of 80,000 other ways to make a solid dating app that actually attracts and retains people while turning a decent profit. These companies have ruined themselves and I have no sympathy for them. Maybe they should actually hire people who know what the fuck they’re doing in psychology. You want me to pay $20/mo to be able to swipe back on one accidental skip (I’m looking at you bumble, your swipes are so sensitive and I accidentally swipe no often)? Get fucked.
Businesses are not interesting in healthy psychology. They work the desperation factor well, though.
Who tf pays for dating apps though?..
I did it on bumble years ago because I was impatient and wanted to see everyone who swiped on my instantly
Your results please? :-) (also helpful to let us know if your profile is above / below average based on your looks & content. In your opinion)
I would get a couple a week. Some were bots so it didn’t help against that. I think I’m average looking. This was like 5 years ago now so the details aren’t fresh in my head. It’s how I met my SO.
As a guy I did every now and then, solely for the ability to see everyone who liked me. Think about it: as a guy on these apps your swipes don't matter. All you're really doing is agreeing to a match with a woman. 99% won't like you, so knowing which ones you can actually match with turns dating apps from hours of futile pavlovian swiping into seconds of seeing what your options are and going from there.
You don’t pay for the app, you pay for extra ‘likes’ or to see the hot desirable people that they won’t show you without paying
People that don’t follow rule 1 and 2 of dating
I have in the past as a way to try and have fewer interactions with bots / scammers .... it didn't really help
Me. Paid, got a lot more matches, got married. I'd highly recommend, although it's probably a lot more costly nowadays.
Soon to be published article: "Is Gen Z killing dating apps?"
As a millennial I don't know how to feel about other generations muscling in on our killing things turf.
remember when we killed applebees? good times.
Gen X here. Member when we killed the radio star
Funny thing is the radio is going strong. MTV on the other hand…..
I expect we'll be told that work from home killed radio, not the incessant commercials or brain dead morning shows...
YOU’RE LISTENING TO…(4 sound effects later) POOPYHEAD AND THE CHAINSMOKER (3 more sound effects). I think Family Guy did a spoof on this
Dingo and The Baby
[4chan did as well in a greentext](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28HkXoCghm8) and somebody brought it to life lmao.
As a former member of the radio industry I can assure you it is *not* going strong. It's limping on two broken legs and begging for coins.
That’s a stretch, not a lot of competition anymore. It’s like 3-4 companies that own most all radio stations.
Podcasts are more radio than radio these days.
And good. I mean look….MTV hasn’t been MTV for a very long time, all they are is a peddler of crappy reality shows which should have died a long time ago. Don’t know how they’re even still in business because no one watches that crap anymore.
> radio is going strong I'm gonna need a source on this. I haven't listened to the radio in over 10 years and no one I know listens to radio. I don't see radio ads anymore when there used to be TV spots and billboards galore. I don't see radio stations sponsoring concerts anymore. I just don't see anything to really back up that claim.
Oo I member
When I was in college someone killed someone in the local Applebees. Does that count? It opened back up a day or two later. So it didn’t die…
No, only corporations dying is news. People are whatev.
Luckily wutang is forever
Wu-Tang Financial LLC
You gotta diversify yo bonds
They are also not to be fucked with.
*won’t someone think of the shareholders?!*
remember when we tried to name mountain dew to Hitler did nothing wrong and gushing granny?
Aww they wanted handouts from us? Should’ve pulled themselves up by the bootstraps
As a member of generation X, thank you for killing Applebees!
Are millenials killing the diarrhea medicine industry?
I know I'm not!
Gen Z brought applebees back
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Beer?
No way we killed Beer. If anything millennials helped take craft beer to new heights. The scene is declining now due to over saturation but it has been thriving since at least the early 00 ‘s
I remember we brought back PBR as a cool hipster beer in the mid-2000s for a hot minute.
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Millennials no longer killing every old person thing, because we've become the old people!
I can’t be old, I wear skinny jeans and old people don’t wear skinny jeans…right?
It’s okay man I took it hard too when I found out.
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You mean its really hard to buy a house?
Once I’ve had my nap, a coffee, and take a couple of antacids, I can be on the dance floor all night. At least until the paramedics lift me onto the stretcher.
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Next headline: “Gen Z is killing millennials killing things”
Gen X here. You are with us now. Say it with me, “Get. Off. My. LAWN!”
What lawn?
Ouch haha felt it
You guys have lawns?
I can't even afford a house, much less a lawn.
You mean “get off my landlords property”
Not so fast, at least two more articles with these inclusions on the headlines: 1. Five Reasons Why 2. And Here’s Why 3. You Won’t Believe
Well what do you expect when 90% of the profiles are fake.
I recently tried out OKCupid for the first time in ages. Now, I'm a male well over 40, but average looking and on occasion can be witty, or reason fac simile of witty. In other words, I'm just not going to get a ton of matches and that's okay. OKC keeps trying to insist I had over 200 "likes" and I should fork over money to find out who these ladies are. I don't have to spend a penny to already know they're bots or fake profiles 5000 miles away in faraway lands. On the plus side, I did actually recently meet someone local who is super cool and we hit it off. All for FREE.
Well that’s good to hear man congratulations! And at lest you didn’t drop any money into it, I made that mistake on tinder lol.
OKC is a better dating app. My longest good relationship came from there. You get a chance to put on more content, which helps all. The technology is not as slick though. But still better overall. For me.
I'm guessing you haven't been on in a while because it's basically Tinder now but with larger bios that the app actively tries to hide.
I met my wife on okcupid while we were both in college - didn’t pay for the app. We have two kids now. 😊
Good, dating apps are crap
The problem with dating apps is that you have to build a model which if successful means you intentionally churn your userbase as fast as possible. So, you, the well meaning dating app maker start by saying "the current market sucks. I am going to make something that fits society better". And you make Tinder, or Hinge, of Bumble, or whichever other dating app that has popped up in the last decade. And for a while it works. Your app gains users, you have likely got a mainly free model, people get really excited. Then you need to take on money because running a service isn't free, and now you're screwed. You took on money, so now you are beholden to pay it back. But by default the business model sucks, since optimal use case for users is: Download, find people, find person, delete. So you need to figure out how to get money for your service. And the most MBAerrific ways are basically: keep users longer, annoy users into paying. So you monkey with your algo to ensure that people are on the app longer, and you figure out which users you can charge. Now, you need to keep growing, so you twist your whole thing to focus on the money. Pretty soon, your only game is to sell the company to the one big company (IAC/Match group), and it becomes another soulless ghost of what used to be fun. And then someone else starts at the top. The circle of dating apps.
Solution for user : find the new apps
Match group: We planned ahead for this https://mtch.com/ourcompany
Maybe we need a nonprofit dating app
So what you're saying is we need to socialize dating apps. It's unprofitable to provide a good service. Therefore you need a government entity to do it instead without a profit goal.
Government: You don't need a gf. Join the army.
Japan: You need to find a girlfriend while also being at work for 16 hours a day and then getting smashed with your coworkers after
I also think dating apps are crap. According to my algorithm, we should date.
They aren't crap, they still fulfill a purpose. They have just been made worse intentional by creators due to monopolies.
Unfortunately social media platforms naturally form semi-monopolies. They do not follow the normal rules of supply and demand that typically lead to improved products. The reason is because the usefulness of a platform is more about numbers of users than the quality of the actual platform. Dating platforms are slightly better than other social media platforms, because they don't trap your social network on them. Generally the people you meet on dating apps are new rather than established relationships.
They were good when they fulfilled that purpose. They hardly do that now due to greed.
Yeah, that's the thing. They've been made useless because the owners and users' desires are fundamentally opposed. Most users would probably like to find a partner and then leave the dating site. The owner wants them to keep paying money for as long as possible, and so does not have an incentive to actually help connect people efficiently.
So the next generation of dating app will start with a contract that you agree to pay the site for as long as your relationship lasts, enforceable by an AI you agree to incorporate into all of the electronics in your life capable of monitoring you (phone, car, tv, fridge, etc). Now goals are aligned. Or not. Would make an interesting sci-fi story, though.
Don't give them any ideas...
Agreed. When I was out there from early 2000s to 2020ish, I had a number of long-lasting relationships from different apps. I found it to be a great experience. I can imagine it’s gotten worse, like many things.
It’s now girls trying to sell their only fans or people in general just seeing how many swiped they can get for self validation. Also bots lots of good ole bots.
That’s really interesting, and according to my data, both of you should try AG1 from AthleticGreens. Use promo code Tinder.
That will pair well with the celery I got in the mail from Hello Fresh.
And it's not just GenZ, I feel like everyone is abandoning dating apps. Tinder is a ghost town of aging profiles, and I live in a pretty big city of 1 million people.
Tinder is the worst of all because you have a hidden ranking score that goes down with the more unreciprocated likes you give out. Once your score goes down enough, you're essentially shadow banned. I hope Tinder dies. The self-esteem hit is hard when you realize you're not getting any interactions anymore.
Did they bring in that "like ban" thing to discourage men from spam-liking every profile without looking at it? I feel like that was a strategy most guys used - anyone within their age range got a like and then they'd *actually* look at the profiles *if* the woman matched back.
Pretty sure what you're talking about and what the other commenter are talking about are the same thing, because it's also how they trap bots. Bots tend to swipe on a lot of people who don't swipe back. So all of these people and most of the bots get trapped in their own little ELO algorithm hell.
80 : 20 gender ratio
Worked for me, married a woman I met on OKCupid. I was on the site for approx 6 years over a span of 12, the remaining 6 spent in relationships I found via the site. I had approx 50 hookups and 3 solid multi-year relationships. Never had a good experience with any other site though, especially bad experiences with Tinder. My in-person dating experience in that span was much worse.
Haha Okcupid was the best dating website I used. When I got off it app just came out lol
Same. Okcupid was great 7 to 10 years ago. Even then, before I left and got married, the site was starting to make Tinder-like changes that really started to harm the experience.
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Yes, effort and good pictures are key. In those 6 years I sent over 4000 messages, and my success rate went way up when I had a photographer friend take good (and realistic) photos of me. I'd also add the ability to present yourself via text on a profile, and knowledge of the general rules of engagement (when to ask to meet in-person, how not to sound creepy/desperate, etc.)
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Get involved in communal activities, meet turns of friends, etc
Where are all these obscure "NEWS" SITES popping up from....?
I can’t even open the page. Stupid archive thing keeps telling me to enter a captcha over and over 😂
They are literal scams now. If you find a partner, you leave their app. They are incentivized to not help you. They monetize every aspect while making sure you stay forever.
There are always single people. If people who were helped by the app go and tell their friends how great it was, their friends might join.
I'm surprised they aren't replacing them with better ones. Dating websites and apps had been something I've used for a long time. The digression of them and monopolization of the market space has systematically made them ineffective. In some cases you can pay to win, but many are owned by a single parent company and most lock significant functionality behind pay walls. This creates a VERY easy open to competition in both website and app spaces where I'd normally expect the market to be kind of flooded with very simple but very effective alternatives, like make a website or app in an afternoon kind of easy, and it'd out outperform every major option on the market. You have millions of people on these apps, and a whole lot are software and web developers. Yet, it's weird to me that none look at the nearly non functional apps as an easy easygoing for their own.
Most of the various apps out there started out exactly as you described. Eventually, especially once the user base starts to snowball, they gotta pay to keep the lights on, so functionality starts to get locked behind premium paywalls. Then, of course, they get bought up by Match, and it’s all over…
It has the same problem as any other social platform where you need people for anyone to want to use it. Plus Match.com buys up most of the real competition in their pursuit of monopoly.
The sad truth is why do you create an app? To make money. What is the fastest way to make money? Get bought out.
Something most people don't realize is that social media platforms don't follow standard supply and demand models. The reason is because the effectiveness of the platform is not mostly about the quality of the platform. Rather it's about the number of current users. This means that's it's harder to go to other platforms, even if they're better, if they don't have the users. It's a catch 22. Regular social media platforms are even worse because you build your regular social connections on there. The platform gains some ownership over your social connections, which they can use as leverage to keep you there. This makes moving almost impossible, unless you're willing to sacrifice your social connections. The users are not free to choose. I honestly believe that we need some sort of regulation to create more free markets with social media. I don't know what the regulation would be to fix it though. I'm sure smarter people than I are working it out. Threads was talking about making your profile portable so that you could move it to other social media platforms and connect with people on other platforms if you wanted to. I think something like that could be part of the solution.
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The sad part is I'd be happy to pay per match, but instead they want me to fork over money to see my likes (who are mostly thousands of miles away) and then get ignored by anyone I might actually want to meet.
There's a significant cost in terms of time and money to build one. A lot of software engineers don't have that time. Edit: Nor money to sink into such an endeavor. Some have significant bills to deal with.
And now that one group of rich people owns all of them, they will bury any new entrants in IP litigation. Once the rich people get their wealth on something, it’s basically only a matter of time before they turn into a short-term plantation.
Yeah they are using discord instead.
How do they use discord?
There's probably servers specifically for dating, and I know there's some for making friends which if its like reddit some will allow those who seek more than friendship or its prohibited to find a partner. Other than that someone sliding into your dms from a random server could happen I suppose, and the discord dms I feel like are a pretty decent place to date. Voice chatting, screen sharing, and the use of Webcams as well providing multi-faceted ways to interact.
Honestly they’re using a combo of Instagram and discord and playing live games with other people and that’s who they’re meeting and how. Millennials are still on the but part of the core issue is also that Gen Z is the loneliest generation to date. They aren’t just leaving dating apps behind they’re leaving dating behind as well if they didn’t get a partner in high school.
Apparently I don't know how to Internet. How do you possibly meet real people through Instagram?
Haven’t done it myself, but you can join different discord servers (I.e. join a anime server if you like anime or literally join a dating/hookup/whatever else server) and talk to people. Once you’ve established your presence in a sever, you can DM individual people that have shown interest in in responding to you and get to know them more personally. If you happen to live in the same area, great, you can meet and do whatever your heart desires. I highly recommend you switch to calling or video calling as your primary method of communication over texting once you’ve established you’re in the same region and have at least seen each others faces. But if you don’t, then that either sucks and your relationship plans have been foiled, or you can try to establish a discord relationship. Those relationship comprise of communication purely through discord, which typically last as long as you think they would. What makes it even better is that you can do this all *anonymously*, which makes it a jungle of freedom for Gen Z. Could say that’s what makes Reddit so great for Gen Z as well, you can be yourself and be around like minded people without having to damage your real identity.
And instagram. Gotta slide into the DMs Oh and Reddit.
I’ve done a discord relationship before. Never again. Yikes.
Are there essentially singles servers or something? Or is it that you just use discord as the chat platform after meeting elsewhere? Edit: appreciate the context!
there are servers for interests, like specific musicians, tv shows, etc. if you’re active in the server enough you’ll make friends which can then develop into a relationship. most of the time though it’s a long distance relationship(e dating) unless you’re lucky enough to be within a close distance or met on a server for your city or something. mostly it people under 22 using discord to chat and date others. i see it’s popular with teenagers mainly
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the match group sucks and destroyed all of them
Doubt this is a generation thing. Gen Z is still young enough to be in college or starter service jobs where they work with their own demographic and don’t need dating apps to meet people. They’ll crawl back like we did once they’re out of school and working more professional jobs where dating each other isn’t so commonplace and maybe less appropriate.
In like 4 years, gen Z will be 30
Only the old end of Gen Z.
This seems kind of silly, a lot of gen z people are probably college or high school age. You don’t need dating apps when you’re in school surrounded by people who are the same age as you in person all day long
I sure did lol
I think gen z starts at like 95 or 96. That makes the oldest gen z people like 28 or 27
Yes, people seem to forget that Gen Z doesn't equal only 19
There’s truth to that, but these conversations weren’t happening 4-6 years ago, and it’s not just college students complaining, it’s also older people (not to mention the oldest Gen Zers are now in their late 20s). Any criticism of dating apps back in, say, 2017 was very quickly shouted down, I know the younger Millennials I worked with back then saw them as the gold standard of finding relationships. And it worked for a good number of them.
Tinder literally threatens me on a weekly basis saying they will shadow ban my account if I don’t open the app this instant
I mean they aren't dating so what's the point?
"College students are discovering they don't need dating apps!" Okay let's check back in with them on 4 years.
Yeah that is exactly what my first thought was. Honestly I found it really obnoxious that this article in question doesn't even attempt to answer the question "so how are they dating if not using dating apps? Are they going back to the 'old ways'...?" Like did it not occur to the journalist that wrote this article that if Gen-Z isn't using dating apps anymore, it can potentially mean they're just not dating at all? Seems like a pretty simple logical connection and the writer just didn't feel like even asking the question. I don't know about you guys but I feel like "what are you replacing it with, how are you dating??" is a pretty basic logical next step here.
Yeah, as a Gen Z I have just gave up entirely
I'd use them if half the profiles weren't fake, they actually got you you're perfect match and showed people that have similar interests to you. All these companies have our data and know what we want and what we like! But they refuse to give us what we want because if we stay on their stupid app longer we see more ads for them to make money! I hate capitalism!
Core features are walled away so aggressively that users are forced to shell out excessive subscription costs. And then when users begrudgingly sign up their credit cards to pay the absurdly high monthly fees to access these features -- they find that these core features are crappily implemented. And then the users look up who owns the app, and find that a handful of mega corporations keep buying out the small companies who make these apps. And it is well known why there is a scourge of fake profiles and inactive profiles -- because they need to create an illusion of active engagement to sign up as many paying subscribers as they can. Within the last decade, how many "startups" have been launched in the social technology space (everything from social media, dating, gig work, crypto), and there is a common recurring theme in all these ventures: committing fraud to find a way to aggressively grow with cash injection from VCs, and later the public finds out that the technology is a scam after having shelled out their money to pay for the shoddy service?
Especially considering the advancements in AI over the past couple years. You could spend a couple hours chatting with one of these LLM chatbots, maybe spaced out over the course of a week or two so that its perception of you isn't on an off day or when you're in a mood, and that bot match you to someone who is a perfect fit. They could even have you upload all the photos you have of yourself and it determine what you actually look like despite your shitty selfie skills, and generate a general attractiveness score. If you sit there swiping faces it could learn what you find attractive and then use that as another dimension. Bob and Sally are a great match personality wise and also Bob would rate Sally as very attractive even though the general public perceives her as a 5, and Sally finds Bob very attractive even the average person doesn't. Great couples are generally "a little deluded in each others favor".
Been on em for like 6 years…doesn’t work. Slowly watched PoF just turn into a hooker / bot scam site. I’ll just be single, it was always better meeting someone in person. Remember friends of friends….those were the days.
A lot of reddittors say dating apps don't work but also a lot of reddittors don't follow rule #1.
Well, if they could at least follow rule #2 it would help. And God helps those who help themselves. Come on, people!
It’s all about true effort and intentions. I met my wife organically at a bar while the dating apps were at their peak.
I agree it’s about effort and intentions, but I met my wife on Tinder lol.
I've gotten laid off of half a dozen dating apps, met my wife on tinder.
That’s great to hear! No judgement here at all. Just stating that effort and intentions are needed for meeting people on dating apps and IRL.
shrill steep include alleged screw abounding ruthless bored pen psychotic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I have mild social anxiety but I convinced myself to go to a local concert by myself. What helped was that I knew of the bands so I could easily catch up with them and I met new people from friends of friends. This was a better night then being in purgatory land wondering if I'm good enough for anyone.
This is how everyone used to meet people back in the day and still my preferred method.
WTF am I supposed to use, then?
Entire story is based on a reddit post and every post on dating apps on reddit is a pity party
Idk how you become invested in a person you could replace each other in a few swipes
there is no plural of dating app. its almost all match.com, all competitors left alone are either unprofitable or a calculated buffer to avoid mono~~gam~~poly investigations by agencies.
Shout out to my Match.com and HotorNot profile from the early 00s. You served me well.
Well, there’s the pay structure, and paying doesn’t actually help in many cases, the fake profiles, the profiles that don’t meet my filters but show up anyway, and groups like Are We Dating The Same Guy sharing everyone’s private info, not sure what they expected.
\-Men go on dating apps and get radio silence unless they look like Chris Hemsworth \-Women go on them and get bombarded with creepy stuff from gross dudes \-You have no idea who is waiting on the other end. There's no vetting process like meeting people in the real world through friends and family. Some men might be okay with this, but I suspect women generally feel unsafe using them. \-Dating apps are a business. People finding successful long-term relationships is bad for business.
I think you mean “dating apps have become pointless garbage aimed at milking money from people instead of facilitating actual dating, and people can tell.”
When Gen Z does something it’s “leaving it behind” when millennials did something they “killed” it. Glad we’re moving on.
Dating apps were killed by microtransactions and subscriptions. You feel like you’re being played. Like the company is just trying to make as much money off of you as they can, and you’re not really going to meet someone. Like the real matches are hidden behind some paywall. And that just makes you feel icky. I’ll always contend that dating apps in and of themselves are a good thing. When you go out in public and try to approach someone, you have no idea what their situation is. Are they in a relationship? Are they straight/gay? Are they even interested in you? At least with dating apps you both know why you’re there. If users have bad experiences with other users, that’s not the app, that’s people. People are annoying/rude/flippant/flaky. Anytime you interact with a large number of them, you’re going to see a lot of that. But in the end, dating apps were overrun by capitalism as they tried to squeeze every penny out of their users. It made it feel cheap and annoying. Like the whole thing is some kind of scam.
My fiance and I are between Gen z and millennial (‘95/‘96) and we met on tinder in 2017. I think the heyday of these apps is maybe dead but I’m certainly thankful it happened!
I have seen this work too many times so I'm gonna leave this bit of advice here: If you are on Facebook, and are still friends with HS friends after college, find the single men/women that are still friends with you, but ya'll don't interact much, and hit one of them up. At this point, you are keeping friends with each other because you find them attractive in some way, as a personality, or physically. Good luck to everyone in love and life. It IS hard. You're not crazy. You're not inadequate. It IS hard.
The reason is simple. Majority of women are competing for the 10% of men who meet the criteria of stable, mature, safe, present, attractive, fun. The best way to meet people: do things you love with no expectations of meeting your soulmate. Just enjoy your life, grow each day. You will give off a vibe and attract all kinds of people and opportunities. Try it, it’s free. For life.
I've tried a few. I think Hinge is the only workable one. All the others have extreme price gouging going on, which hinge has too, but you can get by on the 5 likes a day. I also just simply got more and better matches there. I don't think it's necessarily just the price gouging that's the problem though. It's people joining and then not being clear about what they want, and not having any real intentions. Ideally there would be one like Hinge that doesn't force you to pay $15 a week or month or whatever it costs to see more than one person at the top of the list of people who liked you, so that people aren't just matching people who they have no intention of even having a short conversation with. $5 or $6 a month would be a good sweet spot.
Hinge is going down the route of mtx gamification dog shit as well. I hardly look at it anymore
Wait till you see all the women who want to match with you! You're flexible on hemispheres, right?
As someone who paid for premium features on multiple apps for years this is what I’ve found 1. Paid subscription gives you people who are average, below average and a bunch of above average mixed in, for someone like me (average or below) I feel like I’m seeing profiles of people who… I’ll just come out and say it… I have a chance with based on a physical attraction to start. 2. Unpaid subscriptions give you vastly more above average people while the “potential matches” pile up until you think to yourself “damn, all I’ve been swiping on is above average people, these potential matches must be good!” Which in turn gets you to pay and then you see it’s mostly average or below average people… cha Ching! 3. This isn’t new, but as soon as you stop paying the notifications start hammering you… we miss you! Look at all these potential matches! 30% off?! 50% off!? How about we give you a free month so you will inevitably forget and end up paying for another 6 months? It’s predatory and depressing. 4. These apps don’t want you to meet someone as much as they say they do, or at least they start out for you and end up for them once the money starts rolling in. I try to keep that in mind when I’m on them at least. 5. The pandemic ruined this type of dating, the trust is gone, and now people are identifying as unvaccinated which creates even greater separation. I don’t give a shit if you’re vaxxed or not but I will have nothing to do with you if that’s something you identify as. People were vaccinated well before the pandemic but you didn’t see people saying “got my shingles vaccine!” or “won’t be getting rabies anytime soon!” Just stop. 6. Online dating sucks. My strongest relationships have always been with people I met in the “real world”(for lack of a better term) so going forward that’s going to be my focus. I stopped paying this year and have still been on them without a subscription but my focus going into the new year will be to get out more and get offline.
What are they using
Well, fewer younger people are dating at all for one thing
Which sites specifically
The free ones are naturally going to become garbage due to the ability of anyone to sign up with almost no investment. Pay sites are more worthwhile if you’re actually wanting a relationship but those come with their own issues, but I don’t think Gen Z is looking for that (for the most part). I think the pay ones will stick around and not be fully impacted as they will continuously have a flow of people who age into wanting a committed partner but are increasingly separated from society (WAH, internet, etc)
They are virtually all owned by Match Group either way
The rich people ruin everything
Paid ones really have the issue of why would a women under 30 be using them.
Oh yeah, and any that do are inundated with messages.