Users Abandon Popular Dating Apps in Search of New Experiences

Many trends on the internet form a sort of waveshape. Something becomes popular, then over time the interest of the audience subsides, but then a new wave of popularity follows. The most obvious example of this in our time is dating apps. Let’s take Tinder for example. When the app first launched in 2012, it was a resounding success. It was used by millions of people around the world, and copied by other developers who tried to equal it.

However, gradually interest in Tinder, and online dating in general, began to subside. Already between 2015-2019, users were far from being as active as they were before. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused a new peak in the popularity of online dating. Now today, two years later, we are witnessing another decline in the popularity of Tinder and its rivals.

Why do users lose interest in once super-popular dating services? What particularly does not suit them? And what alternatives do they choose for themselves? Today we will try to answer all these questions, and at the same time will give you some useful recommendations for online dating.

People don’t get what they expect from dating apps

In June 2022, an interesting article by a writer called Lucy Cavendish was published on The Guardian website, in which the author shared her not entirely successful experience with dating apps. At that time she was 50 years old and divorced. After studying a lot of positive reviews and inspiring stories about successful online dating, she decided to try this format. But she concluded that the chances of meeting love in a movie club, for example, are much higher than on the screen of a smartphone.

Why did this happen?

Lucy Cavendish conducted a deep analysis and shared her own experience. Like many other users, she did not limit herself to only one application but tried a lot of the most popular services — Elite Singles, Bumble, Tinder, Match, Muddy Matches, Pure, and others. But each time she became more and more convinced that classic online dating is dead as a phenomenon. And that people are simply tired of it.

It is difficult to argue with these statements because thousands of people do not achieve positive results, but simply waste their time in dating applications, turning an initially interesting and inspiring process into an endless routine. And all because texting in applications in most cases does not lead to anything…

Another interesting example is the story of Hinge app user Gili Malinsky. Even though Hinge uses a unique Nobel Prize-winning matching algorithm, it proved to be completely ineffective for Gili. Her success rate was only 4%. That is, the chances of meeting true love on the dating app for her were almost zero. She deleted the application and decided to completely abandon this format of dating on the web.

Our third example is from 42-year-old actress Rebel Wilson, who also used dating apps for a long time, but never achieved success. And then she met fashion designer Ramona Agruma through a friend. The girls talked on the phone for several weeks, got to know each other perfectly, and then started dating offline. And so their strong relationship was born.

Now let’s try to understand what these three cases have in common.

• Firstly, each of the named people used mainly top, popular dating sites.
• Secondly, their communication in most cases came down to texting in applications.
• Thirdly, they had to rely on built-in matching algorithms, which did not perform well.

So in all three cases, the principles of how these dating applications worked only prevented the users from meeting their true love but did not help in this. This makes complete sense because the developers do not want you to quickly find your soulmate and delete their application. It is beneficial for them that you stay on the site as long as possible, pay for premium features, and bring them money … That’s the secret.

Is dating on the internet completely washed up?

Of course not! Indeed, we can confidently say that it is still the future. You just need to change your approach. We will talk about this below!

So, if the format of dating in apps suits you, our first advice is to focus not on the most popular services like Tinder, Badoo, or Bumble, but on more niche, original platforms with a non-standard approach. Here are just a couple of examples of such applications:

• Coffee Meets Bagel — a dating app that once a day (at noon) matches you with a potentially suitable person to chat with. Thus, CMB significantly saves time and does not turn the search for your soulmate into a routine.
• Thursday — another app that limits your dating. It only works on Thursdays, and you simply can’t use it for the rest of the week. A great opportunity to control your online life and not leave reality.

Our second piece of advice is to basically abandon the usual dating applications and use an alternative — online video chat. The uniqueness of video chat is that you communicate with other users exclusively by video. So, you can get to know them better, and faster and understand whether it makes sense to keep chatting for longer. Or if you shouldn’t waste time, and simply switch to the next chat partner.

Video chat isn’t a new format anymore. But against the background of the decline in the popularity of classic dating, it is rapidly gaining momentum. Here are a couple of successful examples of such platforms:

• Tinychat — not only a video chat but also a streaming service. If you want, watch streams by users you’re interested in, communicate, and comment. If you want, start your own stream and gather a huge audience of viewers.

• CooMeet — an original online video chat service that connects men only with girls and allows you to chat on a variety of topics. There are no fakes and bots on https://coomeet.com/tinychat, and the algorithm for selecting a chat partner never gets the wrong gender. Plus, in addition to the web version, CooMeet has great mobile apps for iOS and Android, so you can meet and communicate anywhere and anytime.

In conclusion, we’d like to say that online dating, despite the opinions of many people, is definitely not dead. In fact, it is very much alive and actively developing. Your goal should be to find the most suitable platforms for you, based on your own aims, wishes, and priorities.

We recommend that you switch from texting to video chat as soon as possible. It saves a lot of time and gives much more positive reactions than ordinary text messaging. In addition, this way you get to know and get to know the other person much faster. This means you’ll be able to quickly switch to live communication, and will know exactly what awaits you on the first date.

Therefore, the last thing you should do is give up on online dating on a general principle. Sometimes all you need to do is change your approach and positive results will happen sooner than you expect. Good luck!