Young women fall out of love with dating apps

bnew

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Young women fall out of love with dating apps​

Gen Z is a priority for Tinder and Bumble but threats and unsolicited material from potential suitors often turn users off

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Match Group and Bumble have both said they plan to boost content moderation and introduce other tools to improve women’s experiences © FT montage/Getty Images


Stephanie Stacey(opens a new window) in London

20 MINUTES AGO

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Dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble are exploring extra features and new branding to attract more Generation Z women in response to warnings that female users are suffering “burnout” on matchmaking platforms.

Match Group, which has more than 40 dating brands including Tinder and Hinge, and Bumble, which also owns Badoo and Fruitz, have both said they plan to boost content moderation and introduce other tools to improve women’s experiences.

Surveys have consistently shown a gender disparity among dating app users, while some women have reported concerns about receiving unsolicited material and violent threats while using the services.

Solving these problems is crucial for the sector, as the biggest players are under pressure to lure back investors. Shares in both $7.8bn Match Group and $1.5bn Bumble have fallen more than 80 per cent from their highs in 2021, wiping more than $40bn and $18bn from their respective values.

“Gen Z and women — and women’s experience in particular — is our top priority,” said Match Group chief executive Bernard Kim, responding to a question about Tinder during the company’s latest earnings call. “They are literally the most critical demographic for all dating apps.”

Tinder, the world’s dominant dating app, has since its launch in 2012 popularised the function that allows users to accept or reject potential partners with the swipe of a smartphone screen. Ten-year-old Bumble, meanwhile, has positioned itself as a female-focused alternative, where women took the initiative in starting conversations. Relationship-focused Hinge has branded itself as the app “designed to be deleted”.

Line chart of Share price ($) showing Shares in Match Group and Bumble have tumbled since 2021

A recent poll by market research firm Mintel found that 47 per cent of men aged between 18 and 34 in the UK had used a dating website or app in the year to December, compared with 25 per cent of women of the same age. A similar but less pronounced disparity was found among older respondents.

“Trying to engage young women is the biggest struggle for dating apps,” said Rebecca McGrath, associate director for media and technology at Mintel. “Significant gender skew means it is harder for men to find matches and, subsequently, women often become bombarded, making the experience worse for all.”

The sector’s leading platforms have openly targeted women in recent marketing. Bumble sparked outrage after its latest advertising campaign, which directly addressed women who had withdrawn from online dating, was criticised for mocking those who were not sexually active.

The adverts, which started appearing on billboards in April, featured slogans such as “thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun” and “a vow of celibacy is not the answer”. The backlash prompted Bumble to apologise this month.

“We have heard the concerns shared about the ad’s language and understand that, rather than highlighting a current sentiment towards dating, it may have had a negative impact on some of our community,” said a spokesperson for Bumble.

A Bumble ad
Bumble ads provoked an outcry after they appeared on billboards in April, prompting an apology from the company

Match Group and Bumble each emphasised their efforts to engage female users in their latest corporate earnings calls. “Our number one job is to help our customers find connections and elevate women’s experiences,” said Lidiane Jones, who took over as Bumble’s chief executive in January.

Tinder has in recent years lost users to smaller rivals, including fellow Match Group brand Hinge, which is more popular among Gen Z.

The number of paid subscribers on Tinder fell to under 10mn in the three months to March, a sixth consecutive quarterly decline. Monthly active users, the majority of whom use the app’s free services, have fallen steadily since 2021, according to figures from Sensor Tower. Bumble also showed a first-quarter drop in the number of active users, data from the app-tracking service showed, even though paid subscribers remained steady.

Line chart of Monthly active users (millions) showing Dating app giants Tinder and Bumble face drop in users

The declines in users come as reports increase of so-called dating app fatigue. A survey by Bumble, for example, found that 70 per cent of women using the app had experienced “burnout”.

At the end of April, Bumble rolled out an “opening moves” feature, which enabled women to add prompts to their profiles for potential suitors to answer. The product, which the company said would “lighten the load of initiating a chat”, marks a break from Bumble’s previous model, which required women to actively begin all conversations.

“We’ve seen rapid adoption of [opening moves] and positive feedback from women, who are the target audience for this product update,” said Jones.

Match Group has also explored tools to facilitate the uptake of Tinder, including an AI photo selection feature, currently in testing, which analyses a user’s personal photo album and automatically selects those which best “showcase their personalities” for their profile. Kim said this would reduce the “barrier to entry” for using Tinder.

Both Bumble and Match Group highlighted improving content moderation as a tool to improve women’s engagement and satisfaction.

A 2023 survey from the Pew Research Centre found that over half of women under 50 who had used dating sites or apps had been sent a sexually explicit message or image they didn’t ask for. More than one-in-10 had received threats of physical harm.

Tinder said in February it was expanding its own identity verification programme, which compares a video selfie with a passport or driving licence, as well as the images on a user’s profile. Bumble, which already offered a similar feature, said it had enhanced its “computer vision model for likeness comparison” in the first quarter in order to improve verification.

Match Group’s Kim said Tinder’s rebrand in 2023 was expected “to have some positive impact on users, particularly women and Gen Z”. He noted however that paid subscriber growth would come primarily from “product innovation”, which includes improving profile quality, moderation and the accuracy of its algorithmic matchmaking.

Tinder chief executive Faye Iosotaluno said in March: “My goal is to make sure, if you’re a woman and you show up, you see somebody you want to match with every time you’re in the app.”
 

TL15

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Was just talking to a woman friend of mine and she was mentioning how the effort of some men had her re-download and re-delete Tinder in 2 days. :dead:

She said the dude had “big texter” as his communication style but never initiated any conversation, just answered her questions and then said “you?” Asking the same question back :mjlol:

I think men are jaded by women which means they are giving less effort which is in turn jading women etc. :francis:
 

Still Benefited

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Was just talking to a woman friend of mine and she was mentioning how the effort of some men had her re-download and re-delete Tinder in 2 days. :dead:

She said the dude had “big texter” as his communication style but never initiated any conversation, just answered her questions and then said “you?” Asking the same question back :mjlol:

I think men are jaded by women which means they are giving less effort which is in turn jading women etc. :francis:


Call of Duty and internet porn doing a number on these youngsters:francis:
 

The ADD

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Was just talking to a woman friend of mine and she was mentioning how the effort of some men had her re-download and re-delete Tinder in 2 days. :dead:

She said the dude had “big texter” as his communication style but never initiated any conversation, just answered her questions and then said “you?” Asking the same question back :mjlol:

I think men are jaded by women which means they are giving less effort which is in turn jading women etc. :francis:
What’s her IG?
 

Thurgood Thurston III

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Was just talking to a woman friend of mine and she was mentioning how the effort of some men had her re-download and re-delete Tinder in 2 days. :dead:

She said the dude had “big texter” as his communication style but never initiated any conversation, just answered her questions and then said “you?” Asking the same question back :mjlol:

I think men are jaded by women which means they are giving less effort which is in turn jading women etc. :francis:

Meanwhile, guys like myself who are willing to put in effort have ZERO MATCHES.

She can go to hell.
 

-DMP-

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Was just talking to a woman friend of mine and she was mentioning how the effort of some men had her re-download and re-delete Tinder in 2 days. :dead:

She said the dude had “big texter” as his communication style but never initiated any conversation, just answered her questions and then said “you?” Asking the same question back :mjlol:

I think men are jaded by women which means they are giving less effort which is in turn jading women etc. :francis:
this is why I try to set up a small date/meet up after texting for a while (usually within a day of matching). The “let’s take turn asking and answering generic questions” gets old. To the point I have canned responses for the usuall questions.

Plus it lets me know how interested shorty is.
 
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Might sound ridiculous to some, but you just have to allow women to sift through the crazies.The more "safeguards" & censorship you put in place, the more you put men behind a wall.That can even turn the men with good intentions off.Which is bad because, 9 times out of 10, women don't initiate.They're just on the other side of the wall twiddling their fingers.This is a formula to kill off dating sites.Not help them prosper.Some of the savagery in life we just have to deal with:yeshrug:
 

Belize King

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Used to eat off those apps. The days of being a childless bachelor :wow:
I missed out on Tinder. When it was hot I didn’t start using until 2016, met my Wife the same year.
:wow:
I ate off POF and Craigslist.
:flabbynsick:
Caught a few off some other sites but POF was my go to.
:pachaha:
 
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