Dating apps are broken?
I have been using the prominent dating apps since quite some time, they work well initially but slowly the experience feels like a drag. It’s just a bunch of connections you talk to and it mostly ends up being a dead conversation.
I realised when you engage with users who are genuinely looking to date it’s much easier to meet up since everyone is aligned. My hypothesis is that adding more friction on onboarding (not blindly adding this ofcourse) could weed out the users with low intent and leave you with a high quality user base. What do you guys think is the problem with dating apps in general?
P.S: this is a random 5am thought and I had to post it since I can’t stop thinking about it and wanted to hear other, and probably smarter, people out haha 🙌
You should try Hinge. It already adds a huge amount of friction while onboarding, and that does result in a more active, quality userbase.
I am on hinge and it is definitely better than bumble now. Do you think this is a solved problem? 🤔
To a certain extent, yes. Hinge is a better experience. Both Bumble and Tinder have added more friction aka more things to fill before you are onboarded, over the years.
The other problem - that of dead connections, could be given thought to, but then you also want convo's to be organic, not based on prompts or suggestions.
The entire point of dating apps is to keep you on them as a paying customer for as long as possible. That means, they have to make the experience inconvenient enough to make you pay, and that enough dates shouldn't work out such that you keep on the app for long.
I get the logic but how does that make sense over time? It’s the same reason why dating apps have high attrition and people move from one to the other. Tinder -> Bumble -> Hinge