Oh, but you left out the best part of the whole letter! You know, the part where their general counsel says:
Based on *my* knowledge of the industry, these claims cannot be supported.... [emphasis added]
Because, as we all know, being general counsel of a dating site means you know all about things like how many relationships a dating site with X members can theoretically generate, and such.
In any case, this is just meaningless legal posturing. In the United States, where anyone can bring suit against any private entity for any reason whatsoever, a C&D letter from a competitor like this would barely register on my radar screen if I were one of the people at plentyoffish who's paid to worry about such things. Judging by the last sentence of his post, that seems like exactly what the post author is going to do about it.
A large part of that is that he hasn't really updated the site in ages. It's basically coasting, as far as I (or anyone I know) has been able to tell. That it can make that much money without adding 'new and exciting features' is impressive.
I disagree. Terrible design can be ugly, but also a feature. For instance, the squished pictures may be driving profile views (people click to see the unsquished picture).
In any case, this is just meaningless legal posturing. In the United States, where anyone can bring suit against any private entity for any reason whatsoever, a C&D letter from a competitor like this would barely register on my radar screen if I were one of the people at plentyoffish who's paid to worry about such things. Judging by the last sentence of his post, that seems like exactly what the post author is going to do about it.