Everything about this is wrong.

1) The platforms aren't growing that impressively. Most of their users have been on the platform for a while, were previous users, etc.

2) It doesn't matter how good the app is, you need a network effect. New users are going to go to where the potential dates are.

3) Marketing does wonders. An app can suck and have great marketing. It will get users over an app that actually works and doesn't have good marketing.

4) Lots of people on dating apps are looking for dates (hookups), not partners. If the apps can keep you getting dates, not partners, they can keep you on the app and happy.

Match's growth peaked a long time ago. The site is now trying to grow by "offering new products" and "cutting operational costs."

The relative newcomers - Bumble and Hinge - grew by trying to offer a better experience, especially for women, who are traditionally overwhelmed with unreciprocated interest on conventional apps. Both seem to have admitted defeat now and moved to the usual model.

In terms of revenue, the incentive to keep millions of users spending is far higher than the nominal gains from persuading friends of a successful couple to join up. Given that most users aren't successful, that network effect is tiny.

There's an opposing network effect of *keeping customers unmatched, because this provides gossip and entertainment among friends, which gives them a reason to continue using a service.

We know that string-alongs are a real thing on dating sites - especially, but not exclusively, for men.

There's also a small but not negligible subculture of (mostly) women who use dates for free meals and get a good return on their monthly subscription.

And a lot of sites - not just Tinder - overlap hook-up culture with people seeking marriage and kids. If anything the former is a more popular option now.

I don't think this counterargument holds. It's a hell of a lot easier to get a customer who already paid once to pay a second time than it is to get a customer to pay for the first time. Also, I think most people are well aware that by and large, dating apps have a very low success rate for the majority of their users. People use them anyway.

And to add to that- seeing a real world friend go on dates or start a relationship because of an app is better than any marketing you could ever buy.

If you want to drive top-of-the-funnel growth, make the product good even it causes some folks to drop out once they’re in a relationship.

> The vast majority of the platform's growth will come from new users...

Userbase expansion is new users less leaving users for a time period. So there are two factors, not just "new users."

In any case, Match Group apps are well into the phase of focusing on extracting the most money possible from their paying users as opposed to gaining new users.

After all, infinite users are useless to a company, even if it costs nothing to support them, if none of them pay.

The good dating apps just naturally made less money than the horribly destructive ones and got bought out and converted into destructive ones.

> - the KPI "do-more-users-leave-our-platform-earlier-if-our-matching-algo-is-just-too-good" - I promise: In alle the years, this question WAS NEVER - NEVER!!!!!!! - raised, regardless wich Manager or which Exec. This metric isnt even debated.

What labels do they use for training their algos though? What is their definition of a successful match, is it a date, a recurring date, or something closer to a long-term relationship?

If matches predominantly result in "failure" they might just not have enough "long-term success" labels to go by, and their proxy labels will be biased towards short-term successes.

Well, what kind of KPI do you track then?

And yet, the premium features are overtly aligned against user success!

I believe you that these app devs think they are optimizing for user success, but that doesn't change the incentives that frame their work.

The greatest utility of a dating app should be that it provides a higher number of opportunities. This feature is explicitly broken by the most popular dating apps. Often, it is put behind a paywall, which has the same effect as being broken.

On the other hand, if it was so easy to find a match, then we wouldn't be trying to use dating apps. I think it is just generally hard to find a good match for many people these days.

IMHO they should be the best one and use that to draw people to FB. They don't need to keep people in the dating app since its not the primary business.

The only thing I can dream up less appealing than that would be dating on Nextdoor.

Please don't use HN for ideological battle like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I’m sure there are many people who don’t want their dating lives influenced by whatever rulers are in charge of their governments. Democrats won’t like a MAGA dating service, and vice versa.

I think Japan did this last year https://japandaily.jp/japans-government-initiatives-to-boost...

> This is exactly why a dating app should be developed and provided by the government. Side note: If this gives you the heebie jeebies, you are part of the problem.

Bravo, I haven't laughed this much in a while. God-tier satire.