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Until dating apps explicitly measure success in terms of matches made and users deleting the app at all levels of their business, the quality of their products will suffer

If a product team is incentivized to bring in revenue over creating long term relationships, then it will always make decisions that sacrifice the latter for the former

Investors need to understand and accept that these business measure success in that way or find a different stock

Otherwise the apps will have a slow trickle of users leaving after a slew of mediocre first dates or little to no high quality matches




I've kind of wondered how you would structure something to have incentives line up.

Sign a contract saying you pay nothing for as long as you are actively swiping/matching/communicating, but if you stop for 1-2 months you have to pay? Rather feels bad... but maybe the 'lucky' users would be more willing to pay since they found someone? As it currently is & the article describes, current dating app revenue feels super scummy from top to bottom.

Maybe even a discount/refund if you come back to the app after a month or two off :D


Fine if you can assume honest users... But otherwise people would just keep the app around to not pay despite finding someone.


You might as well ask how you could make whiskey healthy.

It’s not. That’s the point.




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