Are dating apps even worth it

Hinge, like many other dating apps, has a freemium business model, which means you can sign up and use the basic app for free, but extras like a higher-visibility profile or the ability to message people who have not shown interest in you cost money.

Over the last couple of years, dating app companies like Match Group and Bumble have learned that, like love, their business is a battlefield. Their stock prices are on the rocks. Their investors are heartbroken. Theyre getting ghosted by users and failing to woo Generation Z. Its no wonder why the CEOs of both companies have recently resigned.

Of all the dating apps, Hinge a Match Group property that has grown increasingly popular in recent years is perhaps the most illustrative of the dating app paradox. Hinge markets itself as the dating app designed to be deleted. How many other companies market themselves this way? Hinge is literally touting success as constantly losing customers. Their social and business missions are in a messy relationship, to say the least.

Last month, TikTok user bianca (infinitebs), who calls herself an amateur sociologist silly goose on her profile, released a viral TikTok video in which she argues that, basically, Hinge is the latest dating app to inevitably fall victim to the core contradiction between its missions of matchmaking and moneymaking.

Lost love in the crowded dating app market is nothing new. One moment a dating app might be hot and heavy with consumers, but the next theyre getting dumped. Match Group has tried to overcome this problem by incubating new dating apps and, more aggressively, acquiring rival ones. Originally just associated with the dating site Match.com, Match Group now oversees a sprawling dating empire of at least 45 dating apps, including Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge and The League.