Tinder Is Killing Itself And It’s Awkward To Watch

Tinder: “Please ignore that man behind the curtain!”

The other day, I was watching YouTube on my TV, and all of a sudden, a Tinder ad popped up on the screen. Ho-hum, I thought. Tinder is struggling.

We all know that Tinder’s now approximately 80 percent men, so it’s not surprising to see an ad or two. I’m (technically) their target demographic, and it’s not like the ads on YouTube are good at knowing who’s married or not.

I continued to watch my updates on Poppy Playtime Chapter 3, then BOOM! Another Tinder ad popped up. This one was even more girl-centric, mentioning a new feature that lets your BFF play matchmaker for you.

I raised an eyebrow because, wow, that’s an awkward feature to offer, but okay, whatever. Back to another round of watching updates on my favorite horror games.

Guess what happened during the next YouTube commercial break. Yep. Yet another Tinder commercial. Soon, I noticed Tinder commercials on Reddit, too.

What’s going on here?

Tinder is a lot like that one friend who used to be a big shot in high school but still tries to ride it out in his 30s. It’s a platform that was great for getting women in the 2010s but has jumped the shark as a result of really bad business moves.

The 2010s saw a lot of news stories involving Tinder dates gone horribly wrong. It’s not that different from other formerly big platforms like OkCupid, which actually had an entire online meme about it being filled with misogynistic creeps.

There is a certain saturation point you reach when it comes to hearing complaints about certain dating apps. It’s that point where you begin associating an app with bad people.

If you start to notice that an app is getting a bad rap for being a creep show, then you’re not going to want to be on it. Too many complaints will make that happen to anyone.

What’s funny about this is that Tinder could have avoided a lot of these problems.

Dating apps are only useful if people are on them. More specifically, they’re only useful to cispeople if you have women on them. The real product that drives sales for Tinder is access to women.

That’s why those apps are free for women to use. Women are, for lack of a better term, the product that makes Tinder profitable. Tinder spends tons of money trying to attract women with the promise of love.

There are several problems that have wrecked Tinder as a company.

Problem: Tinder’s policies have repeatedly shown they don’t care about women’s safety.

Tinder recently revealed a feature that allows paying men the ability to message women who aren’t matched with them. This is a great way to let men harass women who don’t want to be around them.

Unsurprisingly, women aren’t comfortable with this. More women are checking out as a result of this new feature. However, it wasn’t just this feature.

There are a lot of anecdotes out there about women being swindled out of money, assaulted, and even killed on dates. Women have started to ask for background checks as part of Tinder’s requirements.

Tinder is not having it.

Problem: Tinder also frequently bans the wrong people.

I’ve had at least two friends who got booted from Tinder because they reported men who insulted them, berated them, and harassed them. I’ve also heard of exes who report their ex’s profiles for fun.

Women have also been booted for rejecting dates or for no reason at all. Tinder has a track record of booting users for bullshit reasons, and it’s not helping their image with women.

Getting an account unbanned is very difficult. In fact, you can’t really successfully appeal it in many cases. You may even need to furnish proof that someone lied about you.

Oddly enough, misogynistic accounts with Red Pill rhetoric and racist rhetoric can still be found on the app. It’s almost as if it’s skewed against women…

Problem: The app isn’t doing enough to prevent accidentally becoming the other woman.

I’m just going to throw this out there: over 65 percent of Tinder users are already in a relationship these days. Tinder markets itself as a hookup app, but also markets itself as a serious dating app.

Sites like Feeld make it possible for couples to find unicorns and for ENMs to find side pieces ethically. Women don’t want to go on a serious date only to find out that they are dealing with someone who is already married.

This happens a lot.

And yet, there are people out there who will have sex with married people. There are plenty of them, and few mainstream companies actually cater to them, which is a shame.

Tinder has yet to catch on with this market. They just kind of have this weird limbo of people who are looking for everything and nothing, all lumped together.

If they had a separate search feature where people were obligated to put their real status on there or face a ban, there would be a lot less drama going on.

Of course, the bigger issue involves bad dating experiences.

We often talk about the male sexlessness epidemic, but it’s actually females who are facing sexlessness more often these days. Surprised? So was I, to a point.

A large part of this is the internet and how women actually started to talk about all the problems they faced in dating. I’ve written about this before (link below), but it all boils down to these factors:

• More and more women are realizing their partners don’t care if they have an orgasm. The Orgasm Gap is real, and the truth is that it’s convinced many women that the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.
• More and more women have experienced traumatizing behavior at the hands of men — and talking to others made them realize it’s a widespread issue.
• Women are also increasingly put off by the online misogyny they experience. You don’t have to be on a dating app to experience misogyny. It’s really hard to be attracted to men or interested in them if you see the disgusting things they say about your gender online.

Simply put, women are having a very bad time dating, and there are fewer women than before willing to risk a bad date. This eats into Tinder’s pool of eligible women.

If Tinder was wise, they’d focus on making it safer and more transparent for women.

Tinder has a lot of ways they could fix their app for both men and women. However, they are making a cardinal sin in the world of tech: not providing a product that drives key users. Their key user base, their true goldmine, is found through women.

They’re trying to rope women in by distracting women about features that potentially harm them while offering up bizarre options that no one really asked for. (Really? A bestie matchmaker? What even is that?!)

Women have repeatedly asked for Tinder to be more exclusive about the men who sign up. They’ve asked for background checks, permabans for dick picks, and more. Tinder doesn’t really listen to them.

With a rapidly shrinking pool of women willing to try dating apps, Tinder should be falling all over itself to do what it takes to keep women happy. That’s why Raya has a waiting list, and Tinder doesn’t. No women, no dates.

However, the company keeps pushing profits driven by paying men to the top of their list. As a result, the percentage of men looking for a date continues to creep up, and the quality of the experience continues to plummet.

Eventually, not even men will want to try for that sausagefest anymore. So, what more can I say? Tinder seems to be pretty doomed. All we can do is sit back and cringe while it happens.