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the verge dot com slash command line.

1:09

Luxmi, I want to tell you about this guy.

1:12

A dating app guy? Sort of.

1:14

He's been using dating apps for nearly a decade.

1:17

But a few years ago, he discovered something

1:19

about them that made him feel a little cheated.

1:22

His name is Eve

1:24

Gilbert. He's an attorney in Midtown

1:26

Manhattan. It's sick that you're

1:28

a lawyer. Oh, thank you.

1:30

Oh.

1:30

does surprise a lot of people. When

1:33

I met him, he was wearing these heart

1:35

shaped flolita glasses and

1:37

leather pants. You're definitely the most

1:39

stylish slaver that I've come across.

1:41

Thank you. That is what I aim for. And

1:43

when it comes to the ops, he's seen it all.

1:45

He told me he started using them when he was pretty

1:48

young. Like

1:51

most of our gay kids, I was using

1:53

like Grindr when I first started because

1:55

that's like really the only way to

1:57

like me other gay people.

1:59

Grindr was enough when he was living in the

2:01

suburbs. But he moved to New York in

2:04

twenty sixteen and had a new city,

2:06

new me moment. And so we decided to

2:08

try some new dating apps. OkCupid

2:11

was

2:11

first. It had these quirky, queer

2:13

friendly ads on the subway that caught his eye.

2:15

I do fall for ads very easily. Then

2:18

he got on Tinder. When I started,

2:21

Tinder was like, oh, this is the fancy

2:23

one. This is the one that you go to to

2:25

meet like a more long term partner.

2:28

At the time, Tinder was already

2:30

building a reputation as a hookup app.

2:32

But when Gilbert compared it to

2:34

Grindr, it actually felt more serious.

2:37

So he was on these apps for years and

2:39

went on so many bad dates, you know,

2:41

he wanted to be done. I

2:43

mean dating burnout is

2:44

real. Totally. And then

2:47

in twenty eighteen, he thought he saw the

2:49

light at the end of the tunnel. Hinge.

2:51

It was supposed to have this sophisticated algorithm,

2:54

you know, high quality matches, the

2:56

app pitched itself as designed

2:59

to be deleted.

3:00

And then I think the first five or

3:02

six profiles I've seen were

3:04

people I had already talked

3:05

to. And some of them had already been

3:08

on dates with. Like, the same dates

3:10

that precipitated me switching to

3:12

a new app. Okay. So

3:14

I think I know where this story is going.

3:19

Did you proceed to match with

3:21

them, or did you, like, throw your phone

3:23

away in frustration? It just

3:25

made me sit there for a bit. I was like,

3:28

This is New York. It's one of the biggest

3:30

cities in the

3:30

world. These cannot

3:33

be the only options here.

3:35

He did not throw his phone,

3:37

but he was left with a rage

3:39

induced curiosity. Okay

3:42

cupid, Tinder, Hinge, These

3:45

apps were all marketed differently. They

3:47

were supposed to provide distinct experiences.

3:51

So why did using them feel so similar?

3:54

After doing a bit of research, he realized

3:56

that all of the apps he'd been using over the

3:58

years, besides Grindr, were

4:00

under the same corporate umbrella. Honestly,

4:03

I felt kind of

4:06

like cheated in a way. It's

4:08

like, okay, Tinder has been treated me badly,

4:10

so let me try hinge. Kind

4:13

of like the same way, like, if you have a bad product,

4:16

you're like, oh, I'm gonna buy, like, that competitor's

4:18

product instead.

4:21

Dozens of dating apps and websites,

4:24

all owned by the same company. That

4:27

company is Match

4:28

Group. I'm like, how

4:31

how is this possible?

4:37

This is land of the giants. Match

4:40

Group owns nearly all of the top

4:42

dating apps in the United

4:43

Which means it

4:45

controls the way dating works

4:47

for millions of

4:48

people. That's a lot of

4:50

power for one company to hold,

4:52

and it got all of that power through a

4:54

long campaign of buying up the competition

4:57

and steering our romantic lives. It's

4:59

been a lucrative business for Match Group.

5:02

It knows our most intimate preferences

5:04

and behaviors, and match uses

5:06

that data to better sell itself.

5:09

To build new features that make more

5:11

money from our desire to connect. But

5:14

what about users? As

5:16

Match Group perfects the business model

5:18

of

5:18

dating, Are people seeing better

5:20

results? That

5:22

is a great question, Sengita. Since

5:25

I used to work at Match Group, we thought it'd be a

5:27

good idea to hear your fresh take

5:29

on Match's story. I

5:31

can't wait to hear what you find out.

5:33

Thanks, luxury. The

5:45

dot com boom in the nineties was a bit of

5:47

a wild west, and a young computer

5:49

scientist named Gary Kremman

5:51

wanted to try his luck. He

5:53

had an MBA from Stanford, but his big

5:56

business idea was pretty simple.

5:58

He bought up a bunch of catchy domain

6:00

names. Job's

6:02

dot com, housing dot com,

6:04

autos dot com. He also

6:06

owned sex dot com, and match dot

6:08

com. In nineteen ninety

6:10

five, the first version of match

6:12

dot com would have looked

6:13

familiar. I've seen old markups,

6:16

And, like, they literally look like the classified section

6:18

in the newspaper, which probably don't even

6:20

exist anymore.

6:21

That's Amaranth Tom Bray. He's

6:24

the CEO of Match Group Americas. And

6:27

that was exactly the idea. That

6:29

match and all of those other domains

6:31

would function as a sort of online classified

6:34

space. Cremen created

6:36

a company called Electric Classifieds

6:38

to house his domains, named

6:41

himself the CEO and set

6:43

out to conquer the digital classifieds

6:45

business. And what respectable classifieds

6:48

section didn't have personal ads?

6:50

The only thing was that personal ads

6:52

weren't always that respectable. In

6:55

the men digest, a lot

6:57

of the media was talking

6:59

about the dangers of the Internet. Not

7:02

only that, personal, which were

7:04

mostly newspaper nine hundred

7:06

numbers, had a very bad

7:08

reputation. Fran Meyer

7:10

was a classmate of Kremins from

7:12

Stanford. When she joined electric

7:14

classifieds, Kremen put her in charge

7:16

of match dot com. Personal's

7:19

had an image problem. Myers

7:21

says that the personal ad sections

7:23

of local weekly newspapers often

7:26

featured fake ads that were

7:28

basically scams. Ads

7:30

like I'm interested in a game

7:32

bank.

7:32

Really disgusting, that would,

7:35

though, generate lots of

7:37

phone calls to the nine hundred number.

7:39

Okay? So this is the reason

7:42

why Brussels were

7:44

considered fairly sleazy. Beyond

7:46

that, the Internet was new for most

7:48

people. And for those who are

7:50

already online, meeting someone often

7:53

meant anonymous conversations in

7:55

occasionally sketchy chat rooms.

7:57

So Matt and Meyer had to figure

7:59

out how to clean up the Sleeve's factor

8:02

and begin to build trust. She

8:04

said that they started with the idea that

8:06

men would follow women. And the way to get

8:08

women on match was to make sure the men were serious.

8:10

A great way to do so,

8:12

make them pay to use the service. Subscriptions.

8:16

Once we started charging, the percentage

8:18

of women went up almost

8:20

immediately. And I

8:22

think it's because it sort of qualified the

8:24

guys that were on the service. There

8:26

were a lot of other online personal

8:29

but there was none that was really

8:31

taking a brand focused,

8:33

target focused approach. And

8:35

I think that's why we emerged as

8:38

the winner from really for the very

8:40

beginning. Today,

8:42

we adapt our regular weekly

8:44

feature computer line to

8:46

Valentine's Day. The search for true

8:48

romance, as you probably know, can begin

8:50

just about anywhere. But these days, many of

8:52

those seeking soul mates are

8:54

turning to the Internet. Online

8:56

dating spree brand got the Good Morning

8:58

America seal of approval in the late

9:00

nineties. By then, a

9:02

lot had changed. For one

9:04

thing, more people were using the Internet,

9:06

and culturally, things were

9:08

shifting to. Conversations about

9:11

cyber sex in shows like sex in the

9:13

city and films like you've got

9:15

male were helping to eradicate

9:17

the online dating is dangerous and

9:19

weird stigma. It wasn't enough

9:21

for the owners of electric classifieds.

9:24

Kremen was already gone. He bounced in

9:26

ninety six after butting heads with investors.

9:28

A parade of new CEOs

9:30

did not see a future for online

9:33

dating. In nineteen ninety

9:35

seven, electric classifieds

9:37

sold match dot com. This

9:41

is where Media Mogul bury dealer

9:43

comes in. His company bought Match

9:45

dot com in nineteen ninety nine for

9:47

fifty million dollars. Dillard

9:49

was an entertainment executive

9:51

who'd been the chairman at paramount

9:53

pictures and launched the Fox network.

9:56

In nineteen ninety five, he made his

9:58

last big play in TV and

10:00

bought a bunch of regional stations.

10:01

Then along came the Internet. And

10:04

essentially, we followed our curiosity.

10:06

We're not deal junkies in a sense,

10:08

but there was a lot of curiosity and

10:10

a ton of opportunity. Yeah.

10:13

And so we just follow

10:15

the opportunity.

10:16

That's stillers speaking to fortune magazine.

10:20

Opportunity to him meant gathering

10:22

his acquisitions under one corporate

10:24

umbrella. The name of his

10:26

behemoth was Interactive Corp. IAC

10:28

for short. When IAC

10:30

bot match dot com, the website

10:32

had five hundred thousand users.

10:34

That's roughly the population

10:36

of Minneapolis. But Dillard wanted

10:38

Match to dominate the whole country

10:40

and then the world.

10:46

He did what he did best and went on a deal

10:48

making spree. He bought exclusive

10:50

rights to the personal section of New York

10:52

Mag and BET. He

10:55

partnered with MSN and AOL to

10:57

increase Match's membership base.

10:59

Then there was the marketing. National

11:02

radio and TV spots inviting people

11:05

to come and get your

11:05

love. A very two

11:08

thousand and six partnership with

11:10

doctor Phil.

11:10

Jody. Oh, Jody.

11:13

Sorry. You still daydreaming about

11:15

mister Wright? Yeah. You've got

11:17

personality looks. I Q. You

11:19

just need little guy Q. That's all.

11:22

Visit mashes

11:22

dot com today. A campaign

11:24

for people who still felt like online

11:26

dating was for losers. It

11:29

featured real match users. In

11:34

this ad from two thousand and seven, Danish

11:37

beauty twenty two is wearing an

11:39

evening gown. She's gorgeous

11:41

and glamorous. The tagline for

11:43

the campaign, it's okay

11:45

to look. Whether

11:47

it was Match's aggressive marketing,

11:49

greater Internet usage, a

11:51

shift in pop culture, or

11:53

all of these things, At some

11:55

point, online dating became a

11:57

thing. And match dot com

11:59

was leading the pack. Here's

12:02

Diller again, speaking to Fortune in

12:04

two thousand and nine, about ten years

12:06

after first by match.

12:09

Millions five hundred thousand people pay twenty

12:11

five bucks a month or so -- Mhmm. --

12:13

to do this thing. Now

12:16

and that's a very

12:18

good margin really

12:20

remarkably solid business.

12:22

With a solid business, a good margin,

12:24

and cash flow, IAC

12:26

could use its war chest to level

12:28

up matched outcome into something entirely

12:31

new.

12:31

IAC is a holding

12:34

company, meaning they have stakes in a

12:36

variety of other businesses. And

12:39

so it's like a conglomerate. They

12:41

don't just have one type

12:43

of business.

12:44

David Marcus runs ever

12:46

more global advisers, an investment

12:48

firm that specializes in holding companies

12:50

like

12:50

IOC. Marcus is a

12:53

big fan of the Dillard Way.

12:55

I think IAC as a compounding machine.

12:57

They just do this. They

13:00

put in these tiny things. Spend

13:02

years developing them. Then

13:04

what comes out the other side is a great business

13:06

that can live and stand and thrive on

13:08

its own. Put it

13:10

even more simply. Think about a magician's

13:13

hat. IAC itself is the

13:15

magician's hat. And over the

13:17

years, he's been pulling all these rabbits

13:19

out. But these are rabbits that are multibillion

13:21

dollar opportunities. It

13:23

wasn't enough that Match dot com was growing and

13:26

making money. Dealers still

13:28

wanted to forge a company that would dominate

13:30

online dating entirely. In

13:34

two thousand and nine, match dot

13:36

com became Match Group, its

13:38

strategy to eat

13:40

the competition. That same year,

13:42

Match Group made its first acquisition,

13:45

People Media, for eighty million

13:47

dollars. A little over a year

13:49

later, it acquired Meetic.

13:51

Each of these sites brought something unique

13:53

to the business. People media

13:56

had niche brands, specifically

13:58

social connection websites that

14:00

included our time dot com and black

14:02

people meet dot com. Meadec

14:04

was really popular in France and lip

14:06

match get its tentacles into the European

14:09

market. But the most important

14:11

thing was that these acquisitions

14:13

brought millions more people

14:15

under the Match Group umbrella. To

14:17

match Scoop was growing, but it was also

14:19

wary of the competition. Its

14:21

biggest problem in twenty eleven was

14:23

OkCupid. The

14:26

site was reaching younger Gen Xers

14:28

and Millennials who were curious about

14:30

online dating, but reluctant to

14:32

fork over thirty dollars a month for a match

14:34

dot com subscription. An

14:36

okay cupid was free. It

14:38

liked to rub that in match his face.

14:40

In fact, in those days, it

14:42

cast a lot of aspersions on match.

14:45

Match's marketing claimed that twelve

14:47

couples got engaged today thanks to match

14:49

dot com. OkCupid

14:51

took aim at this brag with a snarky

14:53

blog post suggesting that given

14:55

matches scale, this was kind

14:57

of a rip off. What's

14:59

more compared to OkCupid, Match

15:01

was old school. Its users were

15:03

still building and browsing elaborate

15:05

profiles. OkCupid did

15:07

things a little differently. It

15:10

had users answer tons of

15:12

personality questions to get a

15:14

compatibility percentage with other

15:15

users. It felt scientific,

15:18

but fun. So in the case of

15:20

OkCupid, it was clearly

15:22

attracting, like, a more

15:25

coastal, progressive,

15:27

geeky data oriented person. I'm

15:29

Renith Tombray, CEO of

15:31

Match Americas. So it was a

15:33

very unique passionate user

15:35

base that like to answer questions and like it was

15:37

a very different way of analyzing

15:39

and matching people as well

15:41

as assessing people.

15:43

So instead of competing with OkCupid, match

15:46

just bought it. Match's

15:51

next major target was plenty of

15:53

fish, a free dating site that was wildly

15:55

popular in the mid-twenty ten's.

15:57

It was launched by Marcus

15:59

Friend, a computer scientist

16:01

back in two thousand and three. And

16:03

it became so successful because Friend

16:05

mastered the SEO game. When people

16:07

searched for dating in LA or

16:09

dating in New York, They would see plenty of

16:11

fish at the top of the results.

16:14

Kim Kaplan joined the company in two

16:16

thousand nine, so my first

16:18

week at plenty of fish, we went

16:20

to an online dating conference in

16:22

Miami. And Marcus

16:24

got up on stage and was presented with a

16:26

Darth Vader helmet. And it was

16:28

basically them saying you're gonna

16:30

kill everybody in the industry. In

16:32

a two thousand and nine profile,

16:35

in Inc. Magazine scene, friend talked

16:37

about how he worked one hour a day and

16:39

made ten million dollars each year running

16:41

the site from his apartment. Marcus

16:43

said he would never sell. He

16:45

reiterated that number of times to

16:47

everybody. I'm never selling. I'm never selling. I'm

16:49

never

16:49

selling. Why would he? He was making

16:52

millions and he owned one hundred

16:54

percent of plenty of fish, which,

16:56

by the way, was true to its name.

16:58

It had three point six million

17:00

daily active users in twenty fifteen.

17:03

I'm enough

17:03

Tambre again. I think it

17:05

was number two in

17:07

the country. So that was like, obviously, it

17:09

was huge and

17:12

extremely popular. In, like,

17:14

the smaller towns or

17:16

small town

17:16

America. This was obviously a

17:19

problem for Match Group a

17:21

rival dating platform with huge reach that refused

17:24

to be bought. But

17:26

at some

17:26

point, Friends' position on selling

17:29

had evolved.

17:31

He went to dinner

17:32

with Match Group CEO, Sam Yagan. And

17:34

by the end of it, Match owned plenty

17:36

of fish. Friend left

17:38

with over half a billion dollars

17:41

in his

17:42

pocket. It was

17:45

Match Group's largest

17:48

acquisition to date. With

17:50

plenty of fish in its portfolio, Match

17:52

Group now owned four of the five

17:54

top dating brands in North

17:55

America. This morning, the

17:56

biggest dating websites are getting ready to

17:59

woo, walk Street, Barry Dillard's

18:01

company.

18:01

In November twenty fifteen, Match

18:03

Group went public.

18:04

It was the moment

18:06

when Barry Dillard pulled the rabbit out of his magician's hat

18:08

and showed Wall Street just how much

18:11

online dating was worth. IAC

18:15

had spent nearly one point three billion

18:17

dollars to acquire twenty five brands for

18:19

its dating

18:19

portfolio. Match

18:22

Group's market cap at IPO was nearly three

18:24

billion dollars.

18:25

More and more daters were turning to mobile

18:28

apps to meet people. While

18:30

match owned the most popular mobile dating app

18:32

out

18:32

there, it wasn't bringing in much

18:35

money.

18:35

That was about to change.

18:46

Music

18:47

pop quiz time. Can you identify

18:49

these three sounds? That's an 808.

18:52

It's made by pitching and distorting the

18:54

sound of a kick drum it's now replaced

18:56

bass guitar in countless pop records

18:58

from Drake to Kim Petras. Okay.

19:00

Number two. That's a

19:03

vocal chop. A short

19:05

sample of a singer, cut up, drenched

19:07

in reverb, and made totally

19:09

ubiquitous through the hands of EDM producers

19:11

like SquirrelX. Alright. Last one.

19:14

That's a resize. It's a

19:16

sludgy synthesized baseline created

19:18

by producer, Kevin. And Reese Saundersen in nineteen eighty

19:21

eight. You can hear it in a genre like

19:23

Jungle, Drummond Base, UK

19:25

Garage, and it's even featured all

19:27

over Taylor Swift's latest record. The

19:29

sounds of popular music are always

19:32

evolving. If you want to be able to

19:34

know all of it sounds. The switched on pop podcast

19:36

will break it down for you. I'm Charlie

19:38

Harding, the cohost of switched on pop. And

19:40

if you can name this sound?

19:43

Honestly, you should come on the show and tell us about

19:45

it. Switched on pop comes out

19:47

every Tuesday wherever you

19:49

get podcasts. In

19:57

twenty thirteen, about a third of

20:00

Match Group's users were signing up for

20:02

its products on mobile devices. By

20:04

twenty fifteen, that number was closer

20:06

to seventy percent. Part of this

20:08

was thanks to Tinder, which was created in

20:10

an incubator owned by IEC.

20:13

That relationship eventually evolved

20:15

into Match Group owning the app. Dinder

20:17

still had something of a startup spirit though.

20:20

It's spent the first couple of years

20:22

focused on growth, not

20:24

revenue. That all changed when Match Group

20:26

was preparing to go

20:27

public. I do remember,

20:28

you know, finding out, like, oh, hey, we have

20:31

to monetize I think based upon an

20:33

earnings call. That's

20:34

Jonathan Badin, one of the cofounders of

20:37

Tinder. And I was like, wait,

20:38

we're we're what? It's like,

20:40

okay.

20:41

Tinder had followed a common playbook,

20:43

make the app free, and figure out how

20:45

to make money later. Well,

20:47

it was later. And Match Group

20:49

wanted Tinder users to start paying

20:52

up. Tinder just had to find out

20:54

what users would actually shell

20:56

out for. Jes Carbono

20:58

was one of the people tasked with figuring

21:00

that out. In twenty fourteen,

21:02

she was studying sociology at

21:04

UCLA, and writing about online dating for

21:06

her dissertation. She was

21:09

also using dating apps. Carbono

21:11

had recently matched with Sean Rod,

21:13

Another one of Tinder's cofounders. She

21:16

took it as a sign when he started to message

21:18

her while she was on a boring date a few

21:20

days

21:20

later. I

21:22

was forth while all this was happening

21:24

in the back or live messaging, Sean,

21:27

the guy either thought I had a urinary tract

21:29

infection or a cocaine habit or

21:31

I was wotally uninterested.

21:33

It was obviously the third

21:35

option here. She pitched

21:37

her research and herself And

21:39

soon

21:39

enough, she was working at Tinder's offices in West

21:42

Hollywood.

21:43

One of

21:46

her tasks she says, was to dig

21:48

through the data from Tinder's user

21:50

service. I helped them monetize. I helped

21:52

them figure

21:52

out, you know, what people were willing to

21:54

pay for. She wanted to know, would

21:57

members drop money on a tool that would help

21:59

them stand out from the crowd?

22:01

I'll often were they going to

22:04

use it? Under what circumstances did they

22:06

use it? Were men more likely

22:08

to use it than women? These were all questions that

22:10

I was trying to answer in

22:12

the back of my mind to

22:14

understand the motivation for whether or not we should be

22:16

investing in

22:16

it. Her research was

22:19

fed to teams that developed special features.

22:21

What Tinder calls superpowers.

22:23

There was the boost which

22:25

got your profile seen by more people for

22:27

a limited period. And the super

22:29

like, but you could send someone to show them

22:31

that you really liked them. But

22:34

these features were not

22:35

free. I'm gonna again. We are constantly

22:38

looking at various

22:40

ways to say give users

22:42

a way to enhance their chances

22:45

succeeding on the

22:45

app, and that's something that users

22:48

always willing to pay for. End

22:51

user's dead. They spent millions

22:53

seeking an advantage on the app,

22:55

and on subscriptions, which

22:57

Tinder added next. In twenty

22:59

sixteen, it brought in

23:01

a hundred sixty nine million dollars in revenue.

23:03

And still match wasn't

23:06

finished. There were plenty of other dating

23:08

apps that could pose a threat to

23:10

Tinder's dominance. So

23:12

Match Group went back to its old

23:15

playbook. Competition? No

23:17

problem. We'll just buy

23:19

it. In the mid twenty tens,

23:21

dating apps were mostly the same.

23:24

All the dating apps were Tinder except

23:26

for what's your one little wrinkle.

23:28

That's Tim McHugan, a former executive

23:30

at Hinge. In the early

23:32

years, Hinge was pretty much

23:34

just like

23:35

Tinder. it used social media

23:37

to connect users to friends or friends.

23:39

We were chasing their tails. We had

23:41

a swiping experience very much like theirs. We

23:43

had profiles very much like Fairs. We had a couple little

23:46

things that made it a little bit different and we had a

23:48

little bit of a different ethos and

23:50

all that was well and good, but

23:52

ultimately people saw us as the same kind of

23:54

product and they used us in the same

23:56

way as a numbers

23:57

game.

23:58

But Hinge didn't

23:58

want to beat Tinder. It wanted to

24:01

beat Tinder. Internally, we

24:03

were, like, at war against Tinder. We were, like, when you

24:05

got products to be better than Tinder's,

24:07

They're all about

24:08

amplification. They're all about, like, really,

24:11

like, human

24:11

design. Lucy Mork was a product

24:14

designer at Hinge in late twenty fifteen

24:16

when that war against Tinder

24:18

took

24:18

shape. A vanity

24:21

fair piece on Tinder's role in the rise

24:23

of hookup culture had gone negative

24:25

viral. Tinder, it said,

24:27

was patient zero in the, quote,

24:29

dating apocalypse. Romans as

24:32

we knew it had been destroyed, Tinder

24:34

had reduced it to swiping and bad sex and

24:36

anyone who was serious about finding a

24:38

partner was out of luck.

24:45

This is music from an animated

24:47

video that was part of Hinge's anti

24:49

Tinder campaign. In

24:51

it, a man who looks a lot like Hinge

24:53

CEO, Justin McCloud,

24:55

wanders through a kind of dating hellscape

24:57

with signs to attractions like

24:59

eye

24:59

candy, and one nighter.

25:01

Then he walks

25:04

through a door that says hinge and finds

25:06

a bright paradise of happy couples.

25:09

The campaign was called the dating apocalypse.

25:12

The same name as that Vanity Fairpiece.

25:14

It was not exactly

25:17

subtle. If

25:19

most other apps were just Tinder with a

25:21

twist, Hinge's new plan was to

25:23

be everything that Tinder

25:25

wasn't. To be the anti Tinder.

25:28

We knew that if you can

25:30

really, like, get to the core of

25:32

what young single woman's problem

25:34

is and solve that,

25:36

then you're going to, like, have

25:38

a successful dating product

25:41

And at the time, it was like single millennial

25:43

women, and they were just like so tired of

25:45

hookup culture, tired of

25:47

like not really knowing a man's intentions

25:49

that was the problem that we really set about

25:51

solving. Moore had

25:52

led a

25:52

redesign of Hinge to make it feel

25:55

less tendery. It

25:57

started with dropping the

25:58

swipe. The traditional

26:01

swiping app experience was in

26:03

numbers game. But did lead

26:05

to this, like, culture where

26:08

people weren't coming into

26:10

using a dating app with intention

26:12

of

26:12

really, like, dating and getting to know someone

26:14

and getting into a relationship. What

26:16

we wanted to do was to create a environment

26:20

where actions meant

26:22

what they were supposed to mean.

26:24

We knew we had to, like, slow people down

26:26

to make sure they're really measured with their decisions

26:29

and

26:29

to, like, help get the conversation started.

26:31

While Tinder like to brag about

26:34

its billions of swipes and introductions,

26:36

Hinge used different metrics.

26:39

Good dates per user became the

26:41

app's North Star according

26:43

to Tim McGugan. If we

26:45

were the best at creating dates for

26:47

our users, we would win. In

26:50

twenty seventeen, Hinge's strategy had

26:52

started to work. It was

26:54

gaining users and venture capitalists

26:56

were getting

26:56

curious. They weren't the

26:59

only ones. I'm

27:02

always looking for, like, what's missing. Right? Like,

27:04

is there a need? User need out there

27:06

that's that is not being

27:07

served.

27:07

I'm enough tambray again. Tinder

27:09

was like

27:10

fun and fast and

27:12

easy and like everyone loved it.

27:14

But there was a certain kind

27:17

of user, which I think I I call

27:20

it like more

27:22

intentional, like, millennial. Who

27:24

wanted, like, to spend more time on each profile, be a

27:26

little more intentional about who they want to

27:28

meet, learn more about that person.

27:31

They wanted something cool and fun

27:33

and modern and as

27:34

tender, but a little like slow and

27:37

intentional. In theory, Acquiring

27:39

Hinge would help Match Group remain a

27:41

one stop shop for any online

27:43

dating experience a user could

27:46

want. You know, if you hate Tinder, we've got

27:48

the anti Tinder. So in twenty

27:50

seventeen, Match made an initial investment

27:52

in Hinge. Two

27:55

years later, it bought the whole thing.

27:57

Hinge hadn't beaten

27:59

Tinder. It had joined it, but that

28:02

was good enough from Matt Guggen.

28:05

It was a strong sense

28:06

of validation that what we were doing was

28:09

working and that we had a

28:12

promising future

28:13

And Hinge

28:13

maintained its image as the anti

28:16

Tinder after joining Match

28:18

Group. Hinge wants you to

28:20

meet someone great. Even

28:25

if it kills us.

28:29

Hinge, the dating app designed to

28:31

be

28:31

deleted. But Match didn't buy

28:33

Hinge just to fill out a place in

28:35

its portfolio. It expected the app

28:37

to bring in cash

28:38

too. We

28:39

needed to make

28:42

money.

28:42

And so we needed to show

28:44

a return on investment. So

28:46

twenty twenty was the year when we needed to

28:48

monetize. Good thing there

28:51

was already a playbook for that.

28:53

Tinder's business model was a proven success.

28:56

It had made hundreds of millions of dollars

28:58

selling Super Powers a la carte

29:00

and bundling them into premium

29:03

subscriptions. In twenty

29:05

nineteen, Tinder bought in one point two

29:07

billion dollars in direct revenue.

29:09

It made sense for Hinge to go down

29:11

the same path.

29:12

What you can pay for is a

29:15

more effective or accelerated

29:18

experience of finding your next

29:19

date. Engaging with more people

29:21

at once, getting more attention.

29:23

Hinge debuted a new feature called The

29:25

Rose in twenty twenty. If you saw

29:27

someone you really liked, you could send them

29:30

a rose. Every

29:35

user got a free rose each

29:37

week. The idea was that if you are willing

29:39

to part with your precious rose

29:41

for someone, they'd be

29:43

more likely to hit you back. The

29:45

rose also bumped you to the top of their list

29:47

of people who had liked them. You

29:49

might be buried otherwise. And

29:52

a rose could also get you access to people

29:54

who are the most desirable on the app,

29:56

so called standouts. You

29:59

could buy more roses for three ninety

30:01

nine a pop and of

30:03

course they're cheaper by the dozen. If

30:05

all of this sounds familiar, that's

30:07

because the rose is just Tinder super like

30:10

in cellophane packaging. The

30:12

reception to some of these new

30:14

features, which were after all

30:16

ripped from

30:17

Tinder, was a little bit frosty. Lucy moored

30:20

again. Yeah. It's, like,

30:20

withholding pieces of

30:23

the experience and, like, dangling

30:25

tarot in front of a

30:26

user, but being like, oh, pay us

30:28

to get it. And I think that

30:30

can feel like kind of shitty as

30:33

a

30:33

user. But it seems like these apps are improving

30:36

on taking our

30:38

money and making us spend more time on

30:40

their apps than they are it

30:42

it actually matching us with people that

30:44

we're more interested

30:45

in. Right? That's Jeremy. We're

30:47

only using his first name because he works as

30:49

an app developer and wants keep

30:51

his job. Anyway, Jeremy

30:54

is one of the dozens of dating app users

30:56

we talk to for this series. He's

30:59

skeptical of the effectiveness of

31:01

roses and the other superpowers the app asks

31:03

users to pay

31:04

for. I would

31:05

never pay to send a rose to someone

31:07

on Hinge. And if I did,

31:10

I wouldn't think that they'd be motivated to

31:12

match with me over

31:15

someone else. But Jeremy

31:17

does pay for a hinged subscription.

31:19

It lets him see people who have already liked

31:22

him, and that he says makes

31:24

things more efficient. But

31:26

he's not sure efficiency has

31:28

helped him find what he's really looking

31:30

for. A partner. For

31:33

Jeremy and many other users, It's

31:35

not clear if buying all of this extra stuff

31:37

is working or if it's just

31:39

throwing money into the void. Sarah

31:42

Satyirov is another debtor. She diligently

31:44

uses her free rose every

31:45

week. I'd mean

31:47

upwards. For

31:48

sure, if it's been

31:50

a year, then I'm giving out fifty.

31:53

But I

31:54

do it

31:54

every week. So however long it's existed, I've

31:57

been doing it once a week. One

31:59

person has responded to a rose

32:01

she has sent. A guy who is

32:03

thinking about moving to her

32:04

city. They talked for months before

32:06

he arrived, but in person, the chemistry

32:08

was non existent. Think

32:10

I kept going out them because I was like, on paper, he

32:13

is so perfect. And there's

32:15

gotta be something here that I'm missing. I'm gotta be able to

32:17

unlock the connection here. And there

32:19

just wasn't. And I think that's the thing you

32:21

can't you can't account for and you

32:23

can't app optimize

32:25

for the

32:25

connection. You just can't make

32:28

that a feature. Edison

32:30

Wilkinson also has an hard luck with

32:33

roses. Hinge does that like, oh

32:35

my goodness. We know you'll be attracted to these women and you

32:37

have to, like, You give them the one rows

32:39

you get or pay five bucks for

32:41

a

32:41

rows. Yes. Absolutely. They do

32:43

that for sure.

32:44

you paid to interact

32:47

with those women? Absolutely. I appreciate

32:49

it. Okay. Absolutely.

32:54

And nothing has come from it

32:56

at all. So they

32:59

fool me one shame on

33:00

you. Fool me twice. I need to get

33:03

off the app. But that's

33:05

not what's

33:06

happening. People are staying on the app and

33:09

they're paying on the app

33:11

In twenty twenty, Hinge brought in ninety million dollars

33:13

in revenue. It nearly doubled

33:15

the following year. Hinge

33:17

was making more from each

33:20

paying user too. In twenty

33:22

nineteen, that was around five dollars per

33:24

month. In twenty twenty two,

33:26

it was twenty five. The

33:28

value proposition of these premium

33:30

features is more efficiency, more

33:32

visibility, more likes,

33:35

more more, but do they allow

33:37

users to achieve their romantic

33:39

goals, to find

33:40

partners? I put

33:42

the question to Ammirall Tombray.

33:45

The match group executive. Do you think

33:48

those other features

33:50

do you give people more success on

33:52

the

33:52

app? Yes. They do. I mean, like, the

33:55

obvious proof of that is that they're willing to

33:57

continue to pay for it because they see when they use

33:58

it, they see results. And when

34:01

they see more results, they want to buy it

34:03

again.

34:03

Obvious proof is a stretch. Of

34:06

the dozens of users we spoke to, it's

34:09

seemed that what people were paying for was the

34:12

promise of results. Like,

34:14

spend enough and surely they'll

34:16

meet the right

34:18

person. Eventually, I wonder, are the

34:20

roses helping people find

34:22

love? Is that what the data is

34:23

showing? It

34:24

is. It is. I mean, I think there's a stat on

34:26

the app. Self that, like, once if you send a rose, you have a far chance

34:28

of getting a response and

34:30

getting into a conversation than you don't.

34:35

That's not really what I

34:37

asked. But former Hinge

34:39

exec, Tim McHughgan, says

34:41

Match's moneymaking strategy While

34:43

not perfect is a win for

34:45

everyone. Users wanna go on dates. That's what the project is

34:48

there to deliver. People who pay for these

34:50

things are getting incremental value otherwise they

34:52

wouldn't

34:53

pay for them. The roses that they're buying are

34:54

working, the boost they're buying are working, the

34:56

subscriptions that they're buying are

34:58

working. They're having a better experience

35:01

and more dates. And if you want those things, then you can

35:03

pay for them. You you don't.

35:06

Great. Functionally, I can

35:08

know that we took nothing away from

35:10

the free experience when we introduce

35:11

them. And, you know, a

35:14

listener might believe

35:14

me or they might not.

35:17

I don't know. It's a hard thing

35:19

to prove and who

35:22

trusts big corporations,

35:23

you know. If you assume that

35:25

they're well meaning and good,

35:27

they wanna find you your perfect match so

35:30

that the more they know about

35:31

you, the more

35:34

perfect partner they can show you.

35:37

Eve Gilbert, the lawyer we heard from

35:40

earlier, doesn't think that

35:42

paying more for the apps means

35:44

more

35:44

success. The less benevolent

35:46

interpretation is that they're

35:48

trying to find a way to make

35:50

more money off of you. So maybe

35:52

if they know who exactly you're acted

35:56

to, they're gonna give you something

35:58

that's the store brand

36:00

diversion. So you're like, okay. So the

36:02

real one is out there.

36:04

It's like nibbling at

36:06

the

36:06

edges, but never getting the core. We

36:09

are

36:09

sold on the idea that it's just

36:11

a matter of time until

36:13

that special person use our profile and swipes

36:15

right. And paying for special

36:17

features will supposedly shorten the

36:20

process. It felt like

36:22

someone was trying to figure out

36:24

what I liked, but it didn't feel like they

36:26

were trying to do that to help

36:28

me in any

36:28

way. What

36:29

did you do in terms of that? Like, did that

36:31

change your relationship to the app did you stop using

36:34

them

36:34

and you're pissed about it?

36:36

I I kept using them

36:38

because what's the alternative? Luxmi,

36:47

welcome back. What did you

36:50

think? I take it that Eve Gilbert

36:52

does not pay for dating

36:54

apps. I don't think so, in his final

36:56

year of loss school, he actually

36:58

wrote a paper calling Match Group a

37:00

Monopoly. It's like that moment when you

37:02

realize Procter and Gamble makes all of your

37:04

household products

37:05

or that Rupert Murdoch is the hand behind a lot

37:07

of the news. But then you stop and

37:09

think about dating apps. You're hoping they'll

37:11

help you find other humans

37:13

to connect

37:14

with. And then you think they're run by a multibillion

37:16

dollar corporation trying to

37:18

keep its shareholders happy? That

37:21

can be concerning. Is this

37:24

late stage capitalism at its

37:26

finest? Anything and truly

37:28

everything has a price?

37:29

The thing that strikes me

37:31

is, Our love lives are being steered by Match Group's

37:33

business objectives. So people are paying

37:36

for all of these features and they don't

37:38

really know

37:38

if the money's getting them anywhere.

37:41

Yeah. Being a part of Match Group

37:43

seems to flatten these dating services into

37:45

money making

37:46

machines, but a lot of people feel

37:48

like there

37:49

aren't many alternatives to this world that

37:51

Match Group rules. And Match

37:53

Group truly has its tentacles in

37:55

every niche of the market from

37:58

black singles to

38:00

single parents to folks over fifty. No matter where you

38:02

turn, you're in the match

38:04

vortex, so many different cars. But

38:06

when you lift the hood and take a look at

38:08

the

38:09

engine, It's still

38:11

match group.

38:12

In our next episode, we're gonna

38:14

go one layer deeper into the system.

38:17

look the algorithms that are literally shaping our

38:20

romantic

38:20

futures. How daters are noticing

38:22

the patterns and how the apps work.

38:25

And trying to figure out ways to make them work a

38:27

little better

38:29

for themselves. Special

38:33

thanks to doctor Helen Fisher,

38:35

Mark Brooks, and Jim Osman.

38:38

Archival clips in this episode are from

38:40

CBS

38:41

this morning. Land of the Giants dating games is a

38:44

production of the cut, the

38:46

verge, and the Voxmedia

38:48

podcast network. OLUEA

38:50

KEMI A la Desui is the show's

38:52

producer. Cynthia Battuvisa is

38:54

our production assistant. Charlotte

38:56

Silver fact check this episode.

38:58

Julie Myers is our editor. Brandon McFarlane is our

39:01

engineer and also composed the show's

39:03

theme. Nicole Hill is

39:05

our show runner. Additional

39:08

support from Art Tong. Jay

39:10

Castanakis is deputy editor of

39:12

the Virgin. Nashakkoa is

39:14

our executive

39:16

producer. I'm Sengita Sincurts, and I am Luxury

39:18

Miranda Rogers. If you liked this episode,

39:20

please share it. And follow

39:22

the show by clicking the plus sign

39:25

in your podcast app.