this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026
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Today I Learned

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[–] anewfox@lemmy.zip 44 points 4 days ago (1 children)

and reminder, these places make more money if you don't find a match. they are actively disincentivized from doing their stated job.

same is true for companies like incogni. if mass data harvesting is made illegal, they're out of a job. and many of them are owned by companies that also own data brokers. the removal process is often just sending your data to a data broker and asking if they have it, which obviously just hands that data right over in the process. they will make more money from data harvesting staying legal and they know it.

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[–] bluegreenpurplepink@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Isn't their reason for existence now just to harvest your data?

Many of the sites charge subscriptions. They exist to make money no matter how they do it.

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 115 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yep. it's essentially a ridiculous, yet somehow legal racket.

[–] TeaWithDani@lemmy.world 43 points 4 days ago (2 children)

And they convinced several generations that using them is necessary for dating.

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[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Absorbing other companies is illegal under anti-trust, but taking a company as a subsidiary is not, which is the workaround for anti-trust. It gives the false illusion of competition being available.

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 41 points 4 days ago (6 children)

the best way to avoid monopoly charges, is to create multiple companies that "compete" with eachother, that you own.

Luxotica learned this a long time ago, which is why they profit on almost any pair of glasses you buy, and why no one things its a monopoly

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[–] moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com 68 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Federated dating app when?

[–] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 40 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com 50 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] mattyroses@lemmy.today 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

OKComrade - we ONLY swipe left

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[–] DeLancre@piefed.social 23 points 4 days ago

I think it can be replaced with the group chat in matrix.

There no point in making dating app for 5 users.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 27 points 4 days ago (1 children)

When someone wants to moderate it.

Hint: ain't nobody want that

[–] cosmos8188@leminal.space 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Moderation would be a nightmare, especially since Lemmy is used within many jurisdictions.

[–] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 7 points 4 days ago

Don't a lot of instances just bother with laws in the host country though?

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] Dremor@lemmy.world 25 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

From my tests, it is full of fake bot account, bugs (my account simply vanished, twice, without reason), and moderation is basically nonexistent.

None of my 30+ interactions was with a genuine human, all of them were crypto scams, or similar scams.

It comes from a good idea, but god it is badly done.

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[–] Janx@piefed.social 28 points 4 days ago (1 children)

One giant corporation, profiting off of, and intentionally worsening the loneliness epidemic by buying up all the dating apps, pushing premium features, and matching you with bots... It's shit like this that gives me trust issues with government, big business, rich people, etc...

[–] bluegreenpurplepink@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

As someone who's never used these apps, matching you with bots?! what the fuck!

How does that even work and what do you do about it?

[–] MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

As others have noted, they benefit from you being a continued customer - not finding a forever match. What better way to achieve that then never letting you match a real human at all?

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[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Is that why they all feel the same and suck equally?

OKCupid used to be great. Felt different. Less corporate I guess. Easier to talk to people. Was shit the last time I checked a handful of years ago.

Fun Fact: OKCupid used to be SparkNotes, which used to be a CliffNotes type site. Then they started doing user generated quizes. Which X-Men would you be? Then it was randomly a dating site one day.

[–] GiantChickDicks@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago

Back in the day, TheSpark.com used to be unhinged and a lot of fun. The Stinky Meat Project was so stupid, but so dedicated, that I couldn't help following along. And the quizzes were a great way to abuse poorly supervised time with computers at school, too!

It sucks getting old, but I'm grateful for the time we got online before it became all this.

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[–] Arctic_monkey@leminal.space 14 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Could we have a fediverse dating app? What would it look like? How would we go about it?

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[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Pour one out for the greatest dating website of all time, Craigslist Personals. You just posted a picture, wrote literally whatever essay you wanted, and you could subscribe to custom search results as an RSS feed.

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[–] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Pour one out for Okcupid. In its heyday it was such a fun site.

[–] Yeller_king@reddthat.com 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I met my wife there 14 years ago. I feel bad for people who are dating now. Seems bad out there.

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[–] frunch@lemmy.world 46 points 4 days ago

Makes perfect sense! How many companies would you expect to own all the popular dating sites? 5? 10?

Of course not! There should only be one company controlling entire markets, it's the American way 🤡

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 22 points 4 days ago

Twenty years ago, dating apps would introduce you to people you wanted to be with. In fact, there were no apps. They were websites.

That I actually had success meeting someone that I love and care about shows a flaw in their business model rather than a successful match. They accidentally lost two customers after extrapolating a lot of money from me without being helpful for more than a decade.

[–] Delilah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 45 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Here are all the sites the match group owns. All of the '* people meet' sites are making me laugh.

Archer Asian People Meet Babyboomer People Meet BB People Meet Black Christian People Meet Black People Meet Black Professional People Meet BLK Catholic People Meet Chinese People Meet Chispa Delightful Democratic People Meet Divorced People Meet Genxpeoplemeet Her Hinge Indiamatch Interracial People Meet Italian People Meet J People Meet Latino People Meet Ldsplanet Little People Meet Loveandseek Marriage Minded People Meet Match.com Match Japan OkCupid Ourtime Pairs People Meet Pet People Meet Plenty of Fish Republican People Meet Salams Seniorblack People Meet Single People Meet Sniffies (minority stake)[63][64] Stir The League Tinder Upward Yuzu

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 61 points 4 days ago (10 children)

If you want each entry to appear on a new line, you need to put two spaces at the end of each line.

Line 1
Line 2

If you want a paragraph break, use two newlines

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

[–] Trex202@lemmy.world 57 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Archer

Asian People Meet

Babyboomer People Meet

BB People Meet

Black Christian People Meet

Black People Meet

Black Professional People Meet

BLK

Catholic People Meet

Chinese People Meet

Chispa

Delightful

Democratic People Meet

Divorced People Meet

Genxpeoplemeet

Her

Hinge

Indiamatch

Interracial People Meet

Italian People Meet

J People Meet

Latino People Meet

Ldsplanet

Little People Meet

Loveandseek

Marriage Minded People Meet

Match.com

Match Japan

OkCupid

Ourtime

Pairs

People Meet

Pet People Meet

Plenty of Fish

Republican People Meet

Salams

Seniorblack People Meet

Single People Meet

Sniffies (minority stake)[63][64]

Stir

The League

Tinder

Upward

Yuzu

[–] datavoid@sh.itjust.works 32 points 4 days ago

I tried Yuzu, but the only one who wanted to fuck me was Nintendo.

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[–] callouscomic@lemmy.zip 13 points 4 days ago

Wait til you learn about local news.

[–] Imhotep@feddit.fr 19 points 4 days ago

It's one giant database with different filters for each website.

Other than privacy concerns, I dislike the consumption aspect. I see them swiping and it looks like they're shopping. I know some people have found meaningful relationships on Tinder, but I can't get over it.

I wonder if so many using it almost as the default way of dating makes it harder to find someone for those who want to avoid it.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Break them up. Fine them for anti competitive practices. Bar their leadership from working similar roles for life. The solutions are easy.

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The solutions are easy.

The concept of the solution is easy. The act of carrying it out is difficult because humans like taking bribes from rich people. And corporations. Oops, I forgot corporations are people in America.

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[–] kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Are there any that are more independent?

[–] siftmama@lemmy.world 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Bumble is the only mainstream one I know for certain is independent.

[–] NGram@piefed.ca 24 points 4 days ago (3 children)

It's not technically independent since Badoo (owned by Bumble) is a very popular dating app too. Those two apps/companies have a weird history (Badoo's owner funded Bumble), but Bumble was also started by an ex-Tinder employee.

And looking at their Wikipedia entries, Bumble seems to be publicly traded with Blackstone owning a significant portion of the company. Bumble also bought Fruitz (another dating app) a few years ago.

[–] StillAlive@piefed.world 13 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Fun fact about Bumble:

Initially, only women were able to start conversation after matching. This 'feature' was removed recently.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/04/a-lot-of-effort-to-get-one-date-bumble-app-makes-womens-first-move-easier

Lol. Lmao even.

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[–] chunes@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

It's just a big game of Monopoly except they're allowed to trick us into thinking they haven't dominated the board yet. What a joke.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Probably with shared fake profiles, too.

[–] UPGRAYEDD@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

And they have made the apps intentionaly worse, because a successful dating app deletes its users.

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and the other one, eharmony, is owned by a religious zealot

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