A few thoughts as a power user of Bumble and other dating apps ("personal marketing spend" of around 300-400$/mo), having been an online dating user for over 15 years:

* The experiment of making women go first failed, it's simply not something most women want to do. It worked well as marketing, but from a product perspective, it's a gimmick. It's a classic product management error of not separating what users say they want to do, what they think they want to do, and what they actually end up doing.

* I commend Bumble on being among the first, if not the first, on having implemented verified profiles. This is a huge issue on apps like Tinder where, at least in big urban hubs, bots can often make up 50-80% of the profiles you're displayed. Knowing that you won't be wasting $2 to Super Swipe a scammer is a relief.

* I appreciate that most apps implemented in-app audio and video calls. That's a game changer for people who do not like the idea of sharing their phone number with a total stranger.

* I still don't believe they've done much to expunge inactive profiles from the site. It might have gotten better recently, but historically you could spend way too much money on Super Swipes on profiles that haven't logged in months and had no plans of doing so. That doesn't feel amazing as a user, it feels scammy at best.

* All dating apps are commoditized at this point. It's fundamentally the same feature set, with the only difference being the pools of users, and even those mostly overlap. Being on multiple apps at the same time gives you the chance to match with someone who swiped left on you on a different app, and gives you access to a slice of the pool that you didn't have on a different service. Having "opportunity 2, 3 and 4" to match again with someone on a different service is typically worth the extra cost in subscription and time spent swiping.

* I'm surprised they haven't allowed men to pay more to get ahead. Tinder has been on that road for a while now, culminating in $10 boosts and $40/mo pricing tier. Men are eager to deploy their resources in being successful at mating, and would be happy to spend more if that meant better results. I suspect that app makers simply can't think of anything else they could monetize for a higher price.

* I wish companies did more to encourage people to actually interact once matched. As of right now, once you match, often the male has to message the female for days before hearing back at all. It ends up being similar to the Rule of Seven in sales. It would be much better to have the app shut the conversation down if it's obvious that it's going to be one-sided, but why would an app voluntarily reduce user in-app time? Perverse incentives.

I don't know if there's a way to make online dating great as an experience, at least in the heterosexual space. Like with job searches, there are lots of resumes submitted into black holes, not hearing back from hiring managers, being in the middle of the process for a role that's about to be filled by someone else, the company suddenly pivoting right after you join and so on.

I suspect that there's much, much more that these apps can do to make it a win-win environment for their users, but they also need to keep the cash flowing. I don't know if there's a way for the app to make more money, while also increasing the quality of the matches that their users are receiving, that actually turn into real dates and real relationships down the line. My hunch is that these two drives are not easy to align.