this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2026
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I met my wife on a dating app, but it was over 20 years ago now. I suspect that like everything they all have evolved to capture your eyeballs as much as possible. Back when I used them, they were about meeting people, they hadn’t yet gamified them with the swipes and so forth.
So, not surprised, a little sad to hear it even, since I can’t imagine being a young person and trying to meet new people these days. Then again, as an aspiring Luddite these days, I hope people find a way to connect in real life.
Some ~8-9 years ago when I first used Tinder, that was already quite gamified, much worse than what you describe. They had a subscription for infinite swiping and no ads, clearly aimed at men because there are fewer women and they find matches more easily.
A year ago, it was much, much worse already. You'd see as many bots as real women, and that's in a small country - go to NYC and bots probably outweigh real women tenfold. Fewer and fewer swipes. You don't get shown to women outside of your "elo" range (which isn't a number you actually see, but everyone has an assigned "value" it seems), even though they get shown to you - no real point in swiping much of the time.
If you have access to third places where people are open to meeting new people, that's indeed the best way. I'm lucky enough not to live in a super car-centric city in the US or anything like that. Some people don't have that going for them :/
I met my spouse over 10 years ago on a dating site, but now I believe they’ve all been bought up by one or two companies and have become completely enshittified. Dating sites would work if there were a Craigslist of dating sites.
Agreed, this is pretty much what they were back when I used them. This was well before tinder or whatever the big one that disrupted the industry is/was.
Funny enough, despite me being extremely happily married for over 18 years now, I still cannot get my damned email off their spam lists. I’ve abandoned that address so I don’t much care, but they really don’t seem confident in their matches apparently :)
back then they didn't suck (as much) because they were still in the 'acquire users at any cost' phase.
20 years ago internet was a whole different place anyway. You'd set up a useful website as a hobby, it'd be monetized with either ads or a subscription if it was truly game changing, but it wouldn't be invasive, if it makes you a living that's great, if it doesn't then you still have a day job. They were hobby projects. Now all the easy niches are filled already, you need to put a lot more effort into building something that people would want to use. That costs money. You start off by amassing costs, meaning you either sink a ton of your own money or investor funds into it. Now you truly do have to 'acquire users at any cost' and then monetize the shit out of them.
People who find people don't pay. It's that simple. They are more about sustainable profit than actual match making.