I have been single for the last 19 months; 114 people exist on the purgatorial “hidden” section of my Hinge account, the place where matches get relegated after 14 days of mutual silence. Of these, 66 – or 46 per cent – are there because conversation was not initiated by either party after the initial match. Only ten have converted into actual dates: that is a conversion rate of 8 per cent. Hinge’s tagline is that it is “designed to be deleted”. It has thus far failed me in its mission. I remain single.
But I am no anomaly: this is the terrain that contours the landscape of modern dating. It seems what was thought of as a lush expanse, full of hope, opportunity and like-minded people, is in fact an arid plain. Ofcom data shows the UK’s most popular dating apps saw usage fall by 16 per cent in 2024: Tinder lost 594,000 users, Hinge 131,000, Bumble 368,000 and Grindr 11,000. In June, Bumble laid off 30 per cent of its global staff. Shares in both Bumble and Match Group, which owns Hinge and Tinder, have dropped more than 80 per cent since their 2021 pandemic highs. The data quantifies a collective feeling: dating apps are no longer providing user satisfaction. They are, in essence, not working.
It’s little wonder then that Happn – a French app that uses a geolocalisation feature to allow users to connect with people they cross paths with in their lives – announced in September that it had agreed an acquisition deal with the Beijing-based Hello Group. The app’s chief executive, Karima Ben Abdelmalek, said the takeover would help the company to expand in Asia, having both experienced slow growth in the US and identified China and Japan as key markets. “The internet dating sector,” she said, “needs to reinvent itself.” But how?
In a recent New York Times interview, Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and CEO of Bumble, emphasised the importance of quality over quantity, of having “good, healthy conversations” and “engaging in a [high-]quality way”. Clearly, Wolfe Herd is trying to place her company in a good light. But while her sentiment isn’t false, it doesn’t completely pass the sniff test either. It is well known that dating apps often employ punitive tactics towards users who do not pay for premium features such as unlimited likes and increased profile visibility. On some platforms their profiles are buried, and, on Hinge, “standouts” – those whom the app believes the user will be most interested in – are kept behind the paywall.
The general experience of a normie is captured by one user on X, who complained, “Every time I get a new like on Hinge, I have to mentally prepare myself to see the ugliest man I have ever seen in my entire life.”
This is all another instance of what the writer Cory Doctorow calls the inevitable “enshittification” of platforms: a process that sees the gradual degradation of an online service as they shift from providing a useful product to ensuring a return on investment. At first, a business is often very good, in its bid to attract and retain customers; then it becomes extractive. All dating apps know that true business success would result in their obsolescence.
Ironically, people (though Gen Z specifically) want what the apps can’t offer: the ineffable wonder of meeting someone in real life. It is not by chance that the demise of the dating app has coincided with the rise of hobby activities such as run clubs. This is the generation whose lives have been tethered to technology; it makes sense that the most radical thing they believe they can do is put their phones down, go outside and talk to someone.
Some apps are capitalising on this gear change: Breeze has users pick a time and a place and simply go on a date, skipping the typical online pre-date chat. Tinder has incorporated a Double Date feature that sees a user and their friend make a profile together and match with other duos, tapping in to the community aspect of social circles. Happn has leveraged AI to suggest personalised date venues by analysing user profiles, creating a sense of going to a local, well-loved spot.
Still, it’s a simulacrum. This is the pervasive cultural tension: more people want to date offline, but fewer are in the spaces where spontaneous connections happen. Communities have fissured as life has shifted from the physical to the digital. Young people are working from home more, going out less and drinking less alcohol; 2,283 pubs have closed in England and Wales since 2020. There is a whimsical temptation to imagine a societal re-embracing of dating pre-tech – a renaissance of meeting someone at a bar, impulsively asking for their number without being deemed a deviant – though the return of this world is unlikely.
Abdelmalek was right: the industry must reinvent itself, because this isn’t the death of the dating app. They can work – 10 per cent of heterosexual couples and 24 per cent of queer couples met their long-term partner online – but the platforms’ dominance is waning. We are at an inflection point, where a total rejection of technology is impossible, but a recalibration of its role is necessary. Perhaps the apps that survive will be those that pivot away from satisfying shareholders and back towards serving their users.
Wolfe Herd has said that she would like Bumble to “help users find love by learning to love themselves” through developing self-reflective quizzes. Because ultimately it’s about reconnection: to yourself, to others, to trying. For the apps, that means reconnecting, with earnest commitment, to their mission and their users.
[See also: Searching for London’s most performative male]
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This article appears in the 16 Oct 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Emperor