February 17, 2024 - 1:00pm
As the rest of us were celebrating love on Valentine’s Day, dating apps were hit with accusations of crimes against it. Match Group — the parent company that owns the majority of the major dating apps, including Tinder, Hinge, The League, Match.com, PlentyOfFish and more — was sued on the 14th in a proposed class action lawsuit targeting the apps’ gamified structure. Instead of aiding users in their quest to find connection and relationships, the plaintiffs claim these apps promote compulsive, addictive behaviour that encourages members to stay on the apps as long as possible, even paying to do so.
The suit focuses on a key piece of marketing that Match Group promotes: for Hinge, in particular, they advertise that it is an app that is “designed to be deleted.” Allegedly, however, the apps are more likely to turn people into gamblers, always on the hunt for their next big win. Online, many have responded to the news by saying they don’t see apps as addictive per se, but they question how else these companies make a profit if not by keeping people single.
Dating apps are a core fixture of romantic life in the modern age and will likely remain so for the next several years. According to Pew Research from 2022, half of all never-married Americans under 50 have used them, with most saying they’ve done so to find a long-term relationship.
That means this lawsuit carries a lot of weight. But even if it does not succeed, the suit could serve as a healthy corrective. Some people may be meeting on the apps, but it seems that fewer people are meeting at all. One major problem with dating apps is that they have given users an unnatural perception of how to couple up. In the early days of the apps, the only real limitations for who a user had a chance to match with were their own demographic preferences and location. Now, one common complaint lobbed against the apps is that they constantly dangle high-calibre matches, only making them accessible if you pay. Either way, it gives the sense that someone better is always on the horizon, and that we ought to keep swiping and see how our odds improve.
Whether or not the lawsuit succeeds, it is a healthy corrective. Dating apps have radically altered our view of romance and dating, and worst of all, we now have little sense of how to part with them. This lawsuit may help ease some of the problems of the apps, but it’s going to take more than a class action to teach us how to meet again.
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SubscribeI’ll just say that I met my fiance through Match.
But I think here is the difference.
We are both in our late 40’s and early 50’s. We knew how to date and interact with the opposite sex without the tech.
Few differences for us…
Our sole objective was to find someone that we would meet so we never had to talk via a chat again.We knew red flags right off the bat. If a woman’s profile says “No republican’s need apply.” then even a liberal man is gonna run. It screams controlling and narrow minded and openly hostile to anyone who disagrees with her. My fiance told me any guy with his shirt off or holding a fish or showing gym shots got passed over. So, we weeded out pretty quickly.As soon as we started dating, we wiped our profiles. It is kinda hard to focus on learning someone, someone who is, by being human, imperfect, and figuring out a relationship, when you are getting alerts about the next pretty face or rich athletic guy. We both know that there is no such thing as perfect, just perfect for you and that relationships are built and created, they do not just happen. In short, we had realistic expectations. Neither of us has ever felt we just settled because we know that we are not perfect either, we both come with our own quirks and hangups and moods.
Four years later, we still work. We have perfect moments. We get aggravated with each other occasionally. We have ups and we have downs. I can honestly say that in four years I think we have raised our voices only once. But we both do our best to treat the other respectfully. We disagree on politics mostly but we very rarely discuss it, just not important to being a couple. I disagree with but respect her point of view and she does the same for me. We can laugh at each others foibles. Our differences are a strength because we are both humble enough to know our own strengths and weaknesses, that we know we could be wrong, that each of us is better at certain things than the other and we trust the other to be respectful when we ask for advice. We talked about this just last night. We were both single parents for a decade. We are both capable of working, keeping a house, doing all the things required for a life. But, I am a better cook. She is better at planning and making family events unique and special. I’m better at fixing and repairing and doing home improvements. She is better at making a house feel like a home. I make a lot more money, but she is far far better at finding fun and creative things to do when we are broke. I’m much more of a planner and look out 5 or 10 yrs, she is much better at living in the now and helps me to live in the moment better. The point is, our differences make us each stronger but for that to work, you have to first have trust and humility and be strong and confident enough to say respectfully what it is that you want or need without being defensive or fear being judged.
Thanks for posting that, by far the best thing i’ve read online this weekend (or longer!)
I’ve had some success using Match too, but as ever, it’s having the life skills to navigate the tech in your own way that makes the difference.
I also met my partner on a dating app. In our case it was back in the early days of Tinder, pretty much 10 years ago to the day. We were on the other end of the age spectrum at the time, 29 and 21. Like you, we also both got off the app shortly after meeting… There definitely wasn’t the desire to see what else was out there.
I think reading your post triggered my gag reflex…….
Why?
This kind of behaviour is undermining our civilization.
Lesbian sites should also be sued, because they will dump any woman who requests a biological woman. Trans women have invaded these sites, making it harder for women who want an actual woman, not a man in a dress who calls himself a lesbian.
—Kimberly
So I have heard. I know this true but cannot believe it is possible. How cruel.
What I hate is when people bring real animals to the ‘Furry’ sites… I mean, sick or what?
Gotta say that is kinda twisted.
Apps such as Tindr (which I think was a rip-off of the gay precursor app Grindr) are obvious meat markets.
How can you even take a company to court for just trying to make you stay online to make them money ? That’s obviously what they all try to do.
The population of this country can’t be simultaneously street-wise one minute and completely naive the next.
Caveat emptor. Grow up and stop claiming to have the rights of an adult and then start crying like an ikkkle baby when it doesn’t suit you.
That doesn’t take into account the millions and millions of dollars spent by marketing industries and developers on psychological research to know how to high jack people’s intelligence. Perhaps some people are less susceptible, and can feel some moral highground, but to not put any onus on such predatory behaviour is quite ridiculous.
Ps never was interested in these apps, and personally could see these apps were designed to make people feel there were always more fish in the sea.
“Either way, it gives the sense that someone better is always on the horizon, and that we ought to keep swiping and see how our odds improve.”
How is this different from an old-fashioned affair?
There are two types of men. The first type will openly admit that no matter how much he might believe he has found ‘the one and only true love of his life’, he will always keep one eye out for a better option. The second type won’t openly admit it.
Actually, I think this might apply to women even more so.
BTW, I’ll assume that by ‘someone better’ the writer coyly means (for men) ‘someone younger, skinnier and prettier’ and (for women) ‘someone richer, taller, and more powerful.’ Certainly that is how dating site algos see it…
I feel sorry for anyone who believes your post. They have to be a damaged person. My Father, Grandfather, and myself never had our eye out for a better option. Once married we were married till death do us part.
No wonder the dating sites are a pathology – because it exists already in the people of today – seeing your up votes..
T’was ‘slightly’ tongue-in-cheek, Simon. As befits a comment on an article which tries/pretends to put a brave/respectable face on sites like Tindr. Anyone who approaches them without assuming that they are teeming with grubby blokes who want a quick easy root and desperate women who want an instant solution to the holes in their lives is asking for damage. Indeed: the people who take these sites – and these articles about them – seriously are more likely to arrive at them pre-damaged (when it comes to love, relationships and expectations there-of.
As Mike Downing above implies, applying material world ethics and morality to the world of internet sex/hook-up/dating is an absurdly infantile category error. I put this article in the same morally null camp as those endlessly tedious – and manifestly dishonest, and usually civically destructive – think-pieces on oxymoronic topics like ‘feminist sex work’, ‘consensual parenting’ and ‘the political progressivism of the filthy rich’.
You are of course right about the majesty – and tenaciously enduring reality, possibility – of romantic and erotic monogamous commitment. It’s one of the most beautiful human achievements for those of us who fall short to behold. You were lucky to have such excellent role models and you are blessed to have learned from them well.
Why not sue universities while you are at it? How many people broke up with school boyfriends and girlfriends because they thought someone better was waiting at university?
Sue the universities for overcharging for a non-education.
I’m not a litigious person, and it seems to be more an American thing, but I’m curious what other recourse average people have against the predatory behaviour of powerful companies?
This would be a very bad strategy for young women given the skewed sex ratios in most university courses.
My husband and I met through a dating site called E harmony. The matching process utilized a 3 level questionnaire with each level requiring more detailed responses. If after 3 rounds, you wished to correspond via email directly, both had to agree. We did and have been together 18 years and married for 14 this year. This process allowed us to find out those interests and values we shared in common. We share the same political affiliations, are both first borns, have 1 sibling 7 years younger, have similar interests in travel and exploring new areas, like to cook together, etc. This site was much more detailed in the matching than the other one I tried (Match.com) which seemed more like an online bar match.I found several apparent matches on that site to be married men looking for something on the side.
Algorithms play such a big part on apps these days, that in my experience once you like one type of person, you get served an almost comical number of the same “type”. Apparently I really love guys who cycle and have short cropped hair, since I liked one who looked like that.