Technology

Calling it a thirst trap is too innocent. These dating app companies are scum-sucking vampires designed to make most people feel lonely and desperate enough to give them money in perpetuity. People just handed one of the most important and intimate aspects of their lives over to US tech bros, pressured everyone else to do the same, and two whole generations are not just having less sex than their parents, but half of them have never had a long-term relationship as they're approaching 30.

I feel like I saw somewhere that men message dozens of times more women than vice versa. I get their non-nuanced temptation but you can hardly call a system that encourages one gender to incessantly spam the other 'engagement'.

Isnt being approached by creeps part of the 'authentic' experience?

It's wild to me that anyone would say that sentence and not immediately realize they sound like an emotionless robot. Like damn, who would've thought people have a great need for authentic human connections? Not me!

This kinda shit you hear from people so deep in the world of product marketing is sickening and really shows how disconnected from they are from both reality and the point of selling a good product: benefitting people. I guess I'm just glad to see more stories of people ditching dating apps as they continue to become more predatory and less helpful.

Yes, but there is a new CEO, people are leaving the dating apps like crazy now, and they’re probably trying to do some shortsighted BS that will increase engagement now at the expense of eroding the long term health of the product experience.

It’s not changing the default behavior, so it still has it.

Per the article, they’re introducing a new opt-in feature that a woman, enbie, or person looking for same-gender matches can set up - basically a prompt that their matches can reply to.

I think Bumble also used to prevent you from sending multiple messages before getting a reply, but maybe that was a different app... If they still do that in combination with this feature, then I could see this feature continuing to accomplish their mission of empowering women in online dating.

lol right? And wasn’t it for women to have a safer place to online date?

So they’re basically throwing women under the bus for money. Classy.

Yes, yes it was. It is now basically the same as every other thirst trap out there.

I met my fiancée on Bumble 4 years ago, but I also created this from my experience on the app:

To me it's so so. They either texted, we had a conversation and ended up on a date the next week, or they sent a message, i answered, waited for a week to get a "lol".

really? I haven't used Bumble myself but I've heard stories of guys with inboxes full of women just saying "hi"

Look at Fabio over here.

Bumble was unique because men couldn't make the first move.

they're all owned by match.com anyway.

I can't imagine something more awkward than having to explicitly deny someone based on looks after having a good conversation.

I have an inkling that would result in people speedrunning all the stuff up until they can see what someone looks like...

Looks do matter, and everyone has different preferences.

The problem isn't that people are judging people based on only their looks, it's that these companies have tuned their matching algorithms to match people who enjoy each others appearance, and specifically don't like each other as people.

In reality, for a satisfying relationship you need both. It's really hard to be more than friends with someone that physically repulses you, and it's really hard to be more than friends with benefits with someone you don't like as a person.

By specifically tuning their system to only give you one, and never the other, they keep people in the grind. You might be pretty happy using these apps for hookups, but even there the algorithm will actively be working against you stumbling onto someone you might wanna meet more than once, because they want you back to swiping for the next person asap.

The fact remains that the matchmaking industry is doomed to be toxic in a capitalist system, because actually being good at it, also means getting rid of your customers.

I used bumble for a bit and saw women's bios that said that they are not making the first step.

I mean on bumble, they did. It’s why I prefer it when I was single. Felt a bit better to allow the women to make the first move as tinder it felt like if you weren’t peacocking in some fashion, you were doing it wrong. Felt better for either gender. Bummer to hear they’re turning into tinder+.