How is that not an anti-trust issue? Each one started as an independent company trying to add value by bringing something new to the table, and they bought them all up to eliminate the competition and enshittified them all with the same profit-gouging algorithms.
Not to mention the concerted effort they made to make in-person dating a social taboo so that everyone literally depends on the dating apps to find potential partners.
Back before I gave up on dating, when I was still on reddit, I can’t tell you how many times I heard the same advice. “Don’t approach people in person, nobody wants to be bothered. Just use the apps where you know they want to be approached.”
That with the systematic minimization of the shittiness of the apps, and the victim blaming “just work on yourself bro, you must be a shit person if you can’t find a partner, so you’d find a partner if you could just stop being a shit person.”
Looking back, I wonder how much of that was astroturfing by the Match Group marketing department…
Because we live in the bad place. Conservatives are unlikely to pursue anti-trust unless they’re using it as a tool to hurt out-group (eg: they might try to break up an organization they perceive as being too queer).
We don’t have a strong left in the US. You get glimmers every so often - Lina Khan was trying to do anti-trust work, but then trump returned and that’s all moot.
A lot of problems would go away or be less bad if we stopped letting power consolidate. Unfortunately, this is the bad place.
Yeah, that’s so true. Ironically, anti-trust laws are more often used to help corporate interests maintain their monopolies and duopolies.
Any time a new startup comes in and threatens to claim a significant portion of the market share, these entrenched big business interests accusing them of “monopolistic practices” even though it’s literally the opposite. It’s plain old DARVO.
We do not live in a free market. That’s a myth told by the oligarch caste to enable and maintain their corruption, capture, and control of the market.
I met my girlfriend on IRC, we’ve been living together for 7 years now. She was trolling people with goatse pics and we started talking about philosophy and poetry etc and then it turned out that she’s a super cute canadian girl. This is usually not the story we tell people when they ask how we met.
You’d never guess if you just met her, she’s a 5’2 ballet dancer but she knows everything about various serial killers. People are complex, we have many sides.
That’s the most crazy story i have read and the best one probably
Also, THIS is how you are supposed to meet people online not with dating apps, dating apps just suck and make you choose the most sexy “option” and maybe their interests maybe
This is usually not the story we tell people when they ask how we met.
Honestly, it’s a way better story than telling people you met on a dating app. And the ones that would be weirded out by the story are probably not people you’d want to spend a lot of time around
I met my husband on Tinder in 2014, 3 years before consolidation in 2017. When I was using it it was only a joint venture with Match Group
I also had some success before 2014 on okcupid (initially owned by IAC which used to contain Match Group and has since separated from match group but Match group kept OkCupid) and POF (sold in 2015 to Match Group)
Makes sense to me why I had a way different experience on dating websites back when I was single compared to my single friends now.
Tinder, Azar, Her, Hinge, match.com, meetic, Ok Cupid, Plenty of Fish, and The League are all owned by a single company.
The ratio of women to men on their dating apps are also wack.
Fun fact: you can probably guess the ethnicity of Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of Match Group.
How is that not an anti-trust issue? Each one started as an independent company trying to add value by bringing something new to the table, and they bought them all up to eliminate the competition and enshittified them all with the same profit-gouging algorithms.
Not to mention the concerted effort they made to make in-person dating a social taboo so that everyone literally depends on the dating apps to find potential partners.
Back before I gave up on dating, when I was still on reddit, I can’t tell you how many times I heard the same advice. “Don’t approach people in person, nobody wants to be bothered. Just use the apps where you know they want to be approached.”
That with the systematic minimization of the shittiness of the apps, and the victim blaming “just work on yourself bro, you must be a shit person if you can’t find a partner, so you’d find a partner if you could just stop being a shit person.”
Looking back, I wonder how much of that was astroturfing by the Match Group marketing department…
Because we live in the bad place. Conservatives are unlikely to pursue anti-trust unless they’re using it as a tool to hurt out-group (eg: they might try to break up an organization they perceive as being too queer).
We don’t have a strong left in the US. You get glimmers every so often - Lina Khan was trying to do anti-trust work, but then trump returned and that’s all moot.
A lot of problems would go away or be less bad if we stopped letting power consolidate. Unfortunately, this is the bad place.
Yeah, that’s so true. Ironically, anti-trust laws are more often used to help corporate interests maintain their monopolies and duopolies.
Any time a new startup comes in and threatens to claim a significant portion of the market share, these entrenched big business interests accusing them of “monopolistic practices” even though it’s literally the opposite. It’s plain old DARVO.
We do not live in a free market. That’s a myth told by the oligarch caste to enable and maintain their corruption, capture, and control of the market.
Good lord they own basically all the major ones.
Also all the different “X People Meet” apps, but no Linux People Meet? 😭 /s
I met my girlfriend on IRC, we’ve been living together for 7 years now. She was trolling people with goatse pics and we started talking about philosophy and poetry etc and then it turned out that she’s a super cute canadian girl. This is usually not the story we tell people when they ask how we met.
A girlfriend that trolls people with goatse? lucky bastard
You’d never guess if you just met her, she’s a 5’2 ballet dancer but she knows everything about various serial killers. People are complex, we have many sides.
That’s the most crazy story i have read and the best one probably
Also, THIS is how you are supposed to meet people online not with dating apps, dating apps just suck and make you choose the most sexy “option” and maybe their interests maybe
Hey no kink shaming in the guild!
Honestly, it’s a way better story than telling people you met on a dating app. And the ones that would be weirded out by the story are probably not people you’d want to spend a lot of time around
Holy shit, I didn’t think that was even possible. I can’t let myself start thinking that’s a possibility, I just can’t. That could lead to disaster.
Tbh, isn’t that just Alovoa? I had never heard of it until I saw it on FDroid
Lmao an open source meet up app. Never heard of it, but interesting to know it exists
We meet here bro 😘
Are you sure there’s no transfemme one?
This makes total sense!
I met my husband on Tinder in 2014, 3 years before consolidation in 2017. When I was using it it was only a joint venture with Match Group
I also had some success before 2014 on okcupid (initially owned by IAC which used to contain Match Group and has since separated from match group but Match group kept OkCupid) and POF (sold in 2015 to Match Group)
Makes sense to me why I had a way different experience on dating websites back when I was single compared to my single friends now.
Feeld is there too. Their matching and like system is very much weighted towards paying not-cheap monthly prices.