Ohh you mean the “pay for every little thing” -feature? Dang I really liked that
Also regarding cost: I have yet to hear how a dating app solves the paradox that success means losing a customer. The incentives of the company and customer are not aligned and actually quite the opposite.
The company wants you to stay and spend as much as possible on the platform (optimizing to keep you just engaged enough to stick with it), whereas the ideal outcome for the customer means not needing the app in as little time as possible.
There’s a big problem with the “women message first” gimmick, and it’s that they just don’t.
If they don’t simply let the match expire, you either get a shitty Gif, or something along the lines of “hey.”
Maybe one in ten will actually send a message that genuinely starts a conversation.
Maybe it’s you guys, but I never really had this issue.
you either get a shitty Gif, or something along the lines of “hey.”
So same result as when men message first.
I literally saw so many profiles being like “I don’t message first”, like do you even understand what the app you’ve signed up for is?
I always wondered if they realised we actually can’t send the first message.
Well cultural habits are slow to change. I suspect it would take some 20 years to change the dynamics such than women are always expected to make the first move.
Bumble was well positioned to push for that change, unfortunately earning revenue has a priority, they are are a business after all. Still their gimmick got the ball rolling, we’ll see who picks it up next.
Wow, as a gay dude reading the comments here, straight dating sucks, why is it even like that?
Bumble used to be different back in the day. I tried it when it was going down the tubes.
I think part of the problem is that the matching is fairly superficial, so while you know a little about the person, most of the details amount to their face, 1-3 hobbies, and their ass.
The women I matched with that I went out with were awkward and felt forced. In the end, I ended up falling in love with a close guy friend that I had known for years.
If bumble wants success, they should allow for much deeper Q&A, longer response times, a tweaked algorithm that matches people based off hobbies and passions, and an AD section that allows people to privately put in stuff that they like after dark. Info that isn’t shared with their matches, but helps make people match better with people like them.
As for straight dating though, idk. I feel like people should probably be avoiding apps and meeting organically through stuff like biking groups, climbing groups, skiing events, big dance venues, etc. it fosters much more organic connections.
I don’t participate in bar culture that much, but the difference between the gay bars I’ve gone to and the straighter college-y bars feels immense. The former is much more social with a pinch of kink, the latter is where people are getting absolutely blitzed without much dialogue over loud music. It’s an extremely small sample size, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s part of a larger trend when it comes to meeting people and how portions of society meet and date. Perhaps there are bars where single straight men and women meet over 1-2 drinks and talk, but I haven’t seen any so far.
Overall, I think the Internet and cars (decreasing population density and increasing the space between third places) has had a dramatically negative impact on love and friendships in places like the US.
