Dating apps face a reckoning as users log off: ‘There’s no actual human connection’ | Online dating

Sad, dizzyingly over-scheduled and suffering a serious case of “thumb fatigue”, midway through last year, Anne* decided to delete her dating apps.

For the previous four months, the 31-year-old Sydney resident had been attempting to achieve two big adult milestones at once: finding love and finding a place to buy. Every Saturday, it felt as though she was being priced out of another suburb, and at auctions she was mainly surrounded by couples. Then she would come home, open Hinge and experience a crushing sense of rejection “on such a personal level”.

Worse still, first dates were beginning to feel as transactional as real estate. “There’d be no attempt to go on a second date or explore any further, which I think is also a bit of an app mentality,” she says. “No huge sparks to start with, so there’s plenty more out there.”

The cost of dating was weighing on her too. “Going for drinks a couple of times a week … doesn’t seem that much until it starts adding up really quickly.” Anne’s policy had always been to split bills on first dates, “But then there were times when I was like, ‘Oh, I would just much rather he paid for me, so I can save a little bit,’” she says. “It’s a weird one – I’m normally quite a generous person, but I felt I had to really keep that in check.”

It wasn’t just going on dates that took a toll on her finances: her app of choice, Hinge, cost money to use. She would occasionally pay for “Roses” – a way of showing a potential match your interest. “There were a few times where I thought, ‘Oh, it’s only $15, I’ll just do that.’ And then, again, that very quickly starts adding up.”

Her mental health “completely destroyed”, she realised “I can’t do both of these things” and turned her full focus to house hunting.

“It was so much all at once.”

Anne is not alone in logging off.

Shares in Match Group, the US tech company which operates the world’s biggest portfolio of online dating services including Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid, have fallen by more than two-thirds over the past five years. Shares in rival Bumble Inc are down nearly 95% since their pandemic highs.

The reason for the steep falls is simple: not enough people are paying for their apps.

While the number of people who paid to use Hinge increased by 290,000 in 2024, according to Match Group’s latest financial report, 679,000 people stopped paying for Tinder. The numbers suggest that while some people are migrating to Hinge, it’s not nearly enough to offset those who logged off altogether.

There were also steep losses among some of Match’s other brands. Overall, Match suffered a net loss of 704,000 paying subscribers over the course of a year, with Meetic, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, BLK, Chispa and The League among the declining platforms.

Bumble did not respond to Guardian Australia’s request for comment. Match Group declined to comment for this story, but referred to an open letter by its chief executive officer, Spencer Rascoff.

“To reach our full potential, we must confront a hard truth: we haven’t always met the high standards we set for the user experience,” Rascoff said in the letter, shared on LinkedIn.

“Too often, our apps have felt like a numbers game rather than a place to build real connections, leaving people with the false impression that we prioritise metrics over experience.”

‘It just felt like such a huge betrayal’

John* has dipped in and out of online dating in various forms over the last seven years. The now 51-year-old met his previous long-term partner at a music festival, and says: “It’s just completely different, connecting with a person face-to-face.”

Although he enjoyed meeting new people, “nothing ever came out of it”, he says. He also found the frequent ghosting frustrating. “That never feels nice.”

Recently, John decided to try US-based online dating service eHarmony, because its more elaborate, questionnaire-based approach to matchmaking sounded promising.

After spending “quite a bit of time” on his questionnaire, John discovered the site was “effectively paywalled” and you “couldn’t even see other people’s profiles” without paying a fee.

Already disheartened by online dating, he didn’t want to spend the money. Then he attempted to delete his eHarmony account, but found no clear way to do so. When he contacted the company through its customer service portal, the response sent by eHarmony, seen by Guardian Australia, said: “Unfortunately we cannot delete your account at this time due to a pending legal matter in Australia. However, we have made your profile inaccessible to any potential new matches. Your account will remain visible to your existing contacts.”

John said he was “flabbergasted” by the response.

“Especially dating site data, it’s pretty vulnerable information,” he says. “It just felt like such a huge betrayal, because if they couldn’t delete it, why didn’t they say it at the very beginning?”

A spokesperson for eHarmony said the company was “deeply committed to providing every member of our community with a best-in-class experience”.

“Everyone who joins eHarmony begins with a free basic membership,” they said. “Basic Members can view certain primary profile information about their matches, and they can also engage in limited communication with their matches at no charge.”

They said that, for legal reasons, eHarmony was required to retain “certain relevant information” which included “user-related data”.

“As this is a pending legal matter, we are unable to comment further at this time,” they said.

John made a complaint to NSW Fair Trading. While the agency determined his complaint did not fall within its jurisdiction, Fair Trading told Guardian Australia that 45 of the 56 complaints about dating services it received since 1 January last year were about eHarmony, mainly in relation to cancellation and cooling-off periods. After John’s experience with eHarmony, he decided to “delete everything”. He likens online dating to a sugar rush, and says the occasional first date just didn’t weigh up against the “emotional cost”.

“It makes you feel like you’re connecting with people … you’ve got all this choice,” he says. “But it’s not nourishing, there’s no actual … human connection.”

Dating app users risk more than disappointment. An Australian Institute of Criminology survey of 9,987 web and app dating service users found three-quarters had experienced sexual violence while using these platforms, and one-third were subjected to in-person sexual violence perpetrated by someone they met online.

On 1 April, the Albanese government’s new code of conduct for dating services came into effect. Designed to reduce harm, it covers the most popular dating platforms including Bumble, RSVP, Grindr and the Match Group. Platforms now risk penalties including formal warnings for not complying with the code.

While most of her friends are partnered, Anne says those who are single feel “quite over” using dating apps. A gay male friend confided his app experiences have been “really frustrating”. Anne says she found this “quite reassuring – that it’s not just straight men being terrible”.

Eventually, after eight months and 92 apartment viewings, Anne found a flat. When she settled into her new home, after five months away from dating, she decided to go back on the apps. But after months of stress, “I just had really run down my reserves of resilience.” She tried speed dating, which felt like “throwing money into a gutter” and soon deleted Hinge again.

Now she’s going to take a new approach to meeting people in real life: salsa dancing lessons. “Worst-case scenario, I’m getting a bit of exercise, learning a new skill,” she says. “It’s not a complete waste of money.”

*Names have been changed