Searching for love: why online dating services make your life difficult

A paradox — dating apps designed to make it easier and more convenient to find your soulmate actually only complicate and slow down this process. The user themself may not even be aware of it, or they may see it but be in denial about it.

Today we will try to explain how the online dating industry works, how dating services eat up your time, and why it benefits the owners of dating apps for you to stay single. There are a lot of interesting things ahead…

Tinder and Ko: from ultra-efficient app to routine service

The Tinder app was launched by Hatch Labs on September 15, 2012 for iOS and Android. At that time the service was really ambitious. Tinder offered an unusual dating format through swipes and matches, worked with reference to the user’s location, made it possible to find interesting people nearby, get acquainted, communicate and meet in real life.

At first, Tinder really received a resounding success with the audience. By January 2014, the number of profile views per day exceeded 450 million, with a weekly increase in users of about 15%. Everything was great, the user base of the application was growing rapidly, and successful Tinder dating stories flooded the Internet. But all good things eventually come to an end.

In March 2015, Tinder began to implement forced monetization. Additional paid features and numerous restrictions have appeared. Over time, the situation only worsened — free functionality became more and more limited, and it became almost impossible to fully use the application without premium access.

And it wasn’t just Tinder that was the problem. The vast majority of popular dating apps worked (and continue to work) according to the same model. At first, they collect a large audience by offering extensive free functionality. Then, when the user base has solidified, they begin to introduce paid features and monetize their service.

A few words about pair-matching algorithms

Almost every online dating service boasts a unique algorithm to form perfect user matches. At the same time, the majority do not specify how such algorithms work, what they are based on and how effective they are. Hinge can be called an exception, but only just. The developers claim they are using the Nobel Prize-winning Gale-Shapley algorithm. But even they do not go into details and do not describe the basic principles of function.

Why most algorithms are a trap

We don’t want in any way to claim that all such algorithms are based on deception. They do work. But they work more for the benefit of the dating service than the user.

If you’ve been using popular dating services like Tinder, Bumble and Badoo for some time, you’ve probably noticed the following pattern. At first, the system recommends a lot of interesting people, your own account is often in top tens and lists, you collect a lot of likes under your photo. And quite a few matches turn out to be successful. But a little time passes, and the system seems to start working at half strength. Recommendations get worse and there are fewer of them, your profile seems to disappear from the view of other users, and each new match brings only another disappointment.

But why?

The reason is that the initial activity is a ploy that online dating services use to get you involved and show you how easy it is to find your love through them. When you get addicted, they begin to use all sorts of methods to pump out money — they limit functionality, reduce the number of times your profile is shown to other users, and so on. If you want it like before, you need to pay, it’s as simple as that.

Omegle and other services — if you’re not ready to pay monthly for dating services

Some dating sites and apps offer quite rich functionality even on a free plan. But in most cases, these are little-known platforms with small audiences, so this option may not be suitable for everyone.

There’s another method of dating however — random video chat services like Omegle. Here, each acquaintance is the result of random chance. And you never know what kind of person will be on the other side of the screen a second later. This format has its own advantages and disadvantages, obviously, but this option is really interesting. Especially if you take your site choice seriously and use more versatile Omegle alternatives:

• OmeTV — a fairly simple, minimalist, but very functional video chat. OmeTV offers you gender and geographic filters as well as a built-in message translator for easy communication with foreigners.
• CooMeet — a great alternative to Omegle chat website for men who want to communicate exclusively with girls. The algorithm for selecting a chat partner is never wrong, because every girl must confirm personal data when registering. CooMeet has user-friendly mobile apps, a good moderation service and even an affiliate program for making real money.
• Chat Alternative — an extremely close analogue of OmeTV, which even visually doesn’t differ from it that much. Gender and geographic filters are also available, and there’s a message translator. You won’t see much difference between it and OmeTV.
• Hiyak — an alternative to Omegle with fairly flexible search options and a strong focus on security. According to the developers, there’s no adult content, spam, scams and the like. And the personal information of users is under secure protection.
• FunYo — another popular random chat whose main feature is the presence of a separate video chat for LGBTQ+ people. But there’s also a section for people of traditional sexual orientations, so FunYo is quite a universal random video chat.

As you can see, your choice is quite large. At the same time, the basic functionality of video chat sites is available free of charge or for a nominal fee. Therefore, even using premium features will definitely not blow your budget. We recommend you try it, you’ll like it!

Opportunities for love are out there online

After reading this article, you might think we’re trying to discourage you from using dating apps. This is not the case. Our goal is to enlighten you about the principles of modern dating sites and the pitfalls they can conceal.

None of the above means that it’s impossible to find your love on sites such as Tinder or Hinge. It’s perfectly possible. There are many true stories about how people met on dating sites, got acquainted and built strong relationships, so experiment.! Use different dating sites, explore their functionality, discover Omegle and its alternatives. Opportunities to meet new interesting people are endless. The only question is how you use them!