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‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps::For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones

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[–] 105 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

Once you realize their business model incentivizes them to not get you a life partner because then you'd stop using the app, they kinda don't make sense to use.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    I liked what bumble did with the "lifetime premium". It gives them an incentive to actually get you a match.

    Coincidentally... I met my current girlfriend on Bumble after trying a litany of apps over the course of years... Definitely not saying it's a good or easy option though. Part of it is that I'm picky, but I treated it a lot like a job for years to get this relationship.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Met my wife on Bumble and we just had a baby in June

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Wait until you find out that she isn't real, and you've been transferring almost all your savings of semen to one nasty guy in Nigeria...

    (lol, this presumes you haven't even met your "baby" yet, only believed in the cute photos your "wife" sent of them, since she still needs a bit more money (probably crypto or giftcards) to be able to afford the transport to come live with you!)

    Hopefully, it's a very different story. Anyway, congratulations!

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think the lifetime premium is a joke because you're paying a lot up front instead of monthly or weekly. Yeah, they may get less money, but probably not. As the article says, people tend to stop using them after a month or two regardless of the outcome (that's definitely my experience), so getting like $150 up front for lifetime access is a lot better than someone paying $35/month for two months.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    For me, it was definitely a huge money saver. Working in tech (now a remote job), not drinking, not being religious, and having extremely "meet a girl" friendly hobbies like hiking and gaming ... it was extremely limiting.

    A 1 time $150 was a steal compared to some of the other apps like the scam that is eharmony.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Wow we're like the same person... Maybe I should give this lifetime Bumble a try

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    I mean, if you're wasting money on other apps... And you just want an app with a pretty good population that you're not constantly paying money into and also not artificially knee capped on... It's a pretty good deal assuming they still offer it

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I was you for 5 years (12 hour shifts 7-7, 6 months night, 6 months day, worked 3 days a week and every other Saturday) but in Manhattan. I bought 3 and 6 month subscriptions and I think that was the only time I actually got dates on there. I was surprised when I got one a few months back on a free account.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    And having a practical monopoly by Match doesn’t help either.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Back in the day, plenty of fish did an interesting blog post on that very topic. Unfortunately, it vanished when they were brought up by one of the big dating site groups that now dominate.

    They also did some amazing meta data analysis of their users, and discussed it publicly. E.g. including the word "awesome" in your opening message improved multi message response rate by 18% (from memory).

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    It was actually OkCupid.

    They also did one where they looked at how men and women rate each other on looks, and found that women rate a whopping 80% of men as below average attractiveness.

    This was made back when you could rate profiles out of 5 stars.

    Archived link to that blog post

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I stand corrected. I used both back in the day. I even met my wife on there! Somehow I got the 2 swapped in my mind.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    The way I remember them is that POF had a horrendous turquoise website design and looked like a circa-2003 webpage that hadn't been updated in years, while Okcupid was a lot more competently designed.

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