The Future of Online Dating Apps
Tags: tinder, dating, apps
Published: 2022-08-10 11:25:57

It has become finally clear that the online dating apps failed miserably at making life better for all genders; yet, the companies running those online services have made astonishing profits. According to the financial data, Tinder closed 2021 with a revenue of USD 1.6 billion. The majority of the subscribers or active users are male, according to the stats.
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Most dating apps' ratings have soured within the past couple of years. Tinder as of 10/08/2022, has a rating of 2.9 on Android's Play Store. Such stats are amazing despite the fact that the company's revenue have been steadily increasing year over year.

Nevertheless, it seems to most dating online services, that the shouts and screams on social media about the problems the dating apps have brought to the less educated users of those apps to be nothing more than mere "Losers" who fail at dating rather than attempting to understand their users better. Tinder charges money for boosting profile's discoverability and other perks that are essentially meaningless and do not actually help in anyways people who are looking for long-term relationship or partners.

Males spend countless hours swiping on the app on hoping of getting a date. However, the odds are skewed against males on the app since the female participants seem to be more selective and actually way lesser in numbers (if we remove bots,inactive and fake accounts). The general population at least in West are beginning to become more aware of the problems ahead and seems like more and more people are leaving the online dating platforms and going monk mode.

Males seek the online dating apps since it's not just easier to access, but also it's a safer way to find a partner without looking like a predator in real world. However, this didn't make life easier in anyways for the males since the swipe data proved that the chance of getting just a date, is extremely low, let alone finding a "Dream" partner or getting married.

While dating apps have opened lots of opportunities for females in this sense, at the same time, females are suffering from 2 critical problems:

1. Too many choices: Females are bombarded with matches from the sheer volume of males swiping right, so they struggle on deciding whether or not to go for one or the other or choosing none at all.

2. Top males are not commitment material: The most wanted males are less likely to reject a woman who is out of his league. Males have a huge pride in being desired by women. Therefore, they live in a completely different reality from the average males and are less likely to commit because they have a very low chance of finding a woman who is on the same level in terms of looks, status, etc... . The woman who gets into a relationship with those males do their best to make him commit which doesn't always end well. However, those males are only 20% of the whole male population if not less on those dating services/apps.

I'm personally, not against the online dating services making profit since it was our choice to use those apps, and it was our choice to spend hours swiping right and left. However, what I'm trying to bring to your attention is that the online dating experiment results are finally being realized and it doesn't look as good as those companies' advertisements try to sell you.

If the dating online services' companies won't find a better formula or mechanics that will help people actually, there is a good chance they will run out of business in a couple of years. However, it might be good news for people since we will get back to the real world and get back to how things naturally used to be instead of living in broken families.

Some ideas of how dating apps can fix those problems:

1. Add a score system for each individual not in terms of looks, but rather in terms of how their dates have gone and whether they ended in a break up or a relationship.
2. If a certain profile is getting too many matches within a certain period of time, the app should display or let the other side know at least of this fact.
3. Be actually transparent and honest about their male vs. female ratios and instead of selling people a dream, sell them what's actually on the shelves.
4. Have a punishment system for people who use the app for the wrong reasons. For instance, the app can ban people who match but don't have a meaningful conversation or a date. This will automatically eliminate a lot of profiles that are catfish,fake and inactive. 

There are many ways that the dating online services can fix/address all the problems. However, with the public frustration and anger at those mega corporations, it seems inevitable at some point that if those tech companies don't actually offer something genuine, they will go out of business.

What are your thoughts on this topic or comments?