*Disclaimer: I do not encourage the use of dating apps. The purpose of this post is to inform the reader of a recent trend in American culture. For this post, I’ll start by explaining what dating apps are. Then, I’ll explain several of the negative aspects of dating apps. Finally, this post will end with my experience on dating apps (don’t worry, I only used them as an “experiment” for this blog post).
What are Dating Apps? & The Rise of Dating Apps
Online dating has been around since the 1990s. It’s certainly not a new phenomenon. However, online dating has changed for younger folks (i.e. millennials and Gen Z). The majority of online dating for 20 and 30 year-olds has shifted from traditional dating websites—such as eHarmony—to dating apps.
For those unfamiliar with dating apps, they are a whole different animal from traditional dating websites. Generally speaking, dating apps are free smartphone applications that facilitate romantic interactions for their users. On these apps, user profiles consist of photographs with a brief bio and text. People my age have pretty short attention spans, so I’m pretty sure that is why dating apps are designed the way they are.
The emergence of dating apps coincided with the rise of smartphones in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Most of the dominant dating apps today got their start in this time period: Tinder (2012), Bumble (2014), Grindr (2009), etc. Simply stated, dating apps directly depend on smartphones. The widespread adoption of cell phones are why dating apps exist in the first place
The main point of a dating app is to get a “match”. First, you create a profile with several pictures. Then, you swipe left or right on other people’s profiles–depending on whether you are interested in a person. You “swipe left” on people who don’t think are attractive, and you “swipe right” on people that you find attractive. Pretty simple. Then, the only way you get a match is if you and another person both “swiped right” on each other’s profiles. Finally, the two people can begin messaging each other once they’ve been matched.
According to a February 2020 Pew Research Center study, 48% of American 18-29 year-olds have used a dating app. That’s much higher than the average American adult—which is about 30% of all American adults. So clearly, dating apps have become much larger role of the dating lives of Millennials and Gen Z-ers. As a Gen Z-er myself, I will later talk about my brief experience in the world of dating apps. All I will say is that dating apps are frequently used amongst my peers.
Follow the Money
From a business perspective, dating apps have become a highly profitable enterprise. In 2015, the Match Group—the Conglomerate owner of the dating platforms Tinder, Match.com, and OkCupid—became a publicly traded company. Match’s current market capitalization is over $38 Billion. Similarly, rival dating app Bumble went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in February 2021. Now, Bumble’s stock has struggled since its IPO. Nevertheless, Bumble’s market cap is still over $7 billion.
So, you may wonder how dating apps make lots of money. Aren’t most dating apps free? Sure, these apps are free initially. But, these apps milk you of either your time or your money. If you use the free version, you have to spend a ton of time on the dating app to get a “match”. Imagine staring at your phone for several hours to get a “match” on Tinder. You probably would get tired of wasting time on your phone night after night. That’s how many users feel.
Once a user gets sick of the free version, the premium/paid version becomes an attractive option. That’s where dating apps make their money. Essentially, users are stuck in a “Catch-22” situation where they have to spend either their time or their money to get results. That’s the reality of the dating apps. The creators of Tinder and Bumble don’t care if their users actually find someone to datr/marry. No, it’s about the almighty dollar at the end of the day.
Most Guys Don’t Win on Dating Apps
Research plainly shows that most men are not successful in getting matches on dating apps. Women are lot more picky than men when it comes to “swiping right”/liking someone’s profile. Also, most women only rate a small percentage of men as attractive. In contrast, most men rate most women as attractive. Those statements might sound abstract. So, let’s think about this situation in another way.
A good way to think about the economics of dating apps is through the “80/20 rule” (a.k.a. the “Pareto Principle”). The 80/20 rule generally states that 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. For example, think about how roughly 80% of a company’s sales comes from its top 20% of customers.
Moving back to dating apps, the bottom 80% of guys compete for the bottom 20% of women on dating apps. Similarly, the top 80% of women compete for the top 20% of guys on dating apps. The result of this situation is that dating apps are generally not a good deal for the average guy.
Side note, a book called The Unplugged Alpha (by Richard Cooper) is a solid resource to learn more about the 80/20 rule when it come to online dating.
Unless a man is confident that he is in the “top twenty percent” of all men on dating apps, most guys should look elsewhere to find and meet women.
Relationships Don’t Thrive on Dating Apps
Most people do not use dating apps to find a long-term partner/spouse. That’s just the cold-hard truth.
A survey of several thousand college students found that only 4% of respondents stated that they used to Tinder to “look for a relationship”. Anecdotally, I can only think of one acquaintance off the top of my head who met his girlfriend through Tinder. Most people age would likely agree that dating apps are not a common way to meet one’s boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse.
Furthermore, relationships that start from online dating usually don’t last. Romantic relationships that began through online dating 28% more likely to break up within 1 year. What’s worse, married couples who met online are more 3 times more likely to get divorced when compared to couples
Personal Experience
About a month ago, I decided to do a “social experiment” for the blog by downloading Tinder and Bumble. My purpose was just to learn more about these apps before I wrote a blog post about them.
Personally, I didn’t have too much luck on the two dating apps. I’m a fairly physically attractive guy, so I thought that I’d get swarmed with matches. That’s not what happened.
On Tinder, I received a few matches. On Bumble, I didn’t receive any. I was on both apps for several hours, so I definitely invested (or wasted depending on how you look at it) a bit of time into the apps. I will admit that I was fairly picky on the profiles that I “swiped right” on/liked. I only liked the profiles of women that I could see myself meeting over a cup of coffee without getting into a heated political debate. So, that standard crossed off a lot of potential matches.
What I found interesting is that a few dozen women liked/”swiped right” on both of these apps without me “swiping right” on their profiles. So, I attracted a decent amount of interest. Nevertheless, that interest did not amount to many matches because I never “swiped right” on the profiles of most ladies wanting to match with me.
The only way that I could see who liked my profile would be to purchase the dating app’s premium version. I had no intention paying on any money for these apps, so I just decided to end my experiment with these apps.
The last point I’ll make is that these apps are super addictive. I am normally not a fan of phone apps, but even I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time staring at my phone to use these dating apps.
Summary
If you’ve made it this far through this post, then I’d like to share my solution to young Americans’ dating problems: arranged marriages … I’m just kidding (well maybe not completely).
But seriously, some aspects of life that should not get packaged into a consumer product! Dating and marriage is another sacred part of life that the business world is trying to creep into. To close, I would not recommend using dating apps.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post and learning a little something along the way.