Daters across the social media spectrum are mourning what many of them have described as the death of Hinge; it’s not the same app where Zohran Mamdani met his wife, Rama Duwaji. The couple’s Hinge triumph has reopened the floodgates of comments from users whose own eXperiences feel ever glitchier, pricier and more disproportionately driven by photos posted somewhere along this decade — a divide that has torn open a chasm in our dating-app world that is worthy of broader discussion.
A Viral Sentiment With Human Frustrations
On X and TikTok, users quip that early app matches who married somehow “caught the last chopper out,” while everyone else is left to wallow in ghosting, dead-end chats and plummeting match quality. Beneath the jokes are familiar pain points: swipe fatigue, superficial snap judgments, the paradox of choice and a seemingly infinite carousel of choices not taken — with algorithms optimizing for engagement over quality, or even health.
Veteran app daters said the users they met included other single mothers who introduced their children on the dates. The features that once were free are now behind paywalls; unique tools are copied from platform to platform; and feeds feel increasingly the same. Many say they’re spending more time — but not getting better matches — and note a difference between the app’s current generation of users, who are well past their late-stage 20s or early 30s, and the group that made it popular in recent years.
What Hinge Changed — and Why the Changes Happened
Hinge has introduced features to try to fix that, as well. The company introduced AI-driven prompt feedback to encourage users to sound more unique, new conversation prompts developed with psychotherapist Esther Perel and message limits on unanswered chats to help prevent inbox overload. It has also taken inspiration from the scarcity mechanics in products like Roses and the Standouts section that push people to prioritize a few candidates and, sometimes, pay for more exposure.
These in turn reflect a larger shift across the industry: more personalization, more guardrails around responsiveness and monetization. They can give the app a new, less frumpy feel — particularly for longtime users who have been around long enough to remember an earlier Hinge that had a lighter touch. The difficulty is in reconciling business incentives with something that feels fair and human — the promise suggested by its “designed to be deleted” branding.
The Market Paradox of Hinge Amid Rising Revenue
But despite the backlash on social media, Hinge is one of its parent company’s bright spots. Match Group’s most recent quarterly filing revealed that Hinge direct revenue was up 27% year over year and paying users increased 17%. By contrast, direct revenue at Tinder declined by 3%, and its paying customers dipped by 7% over the same time. Bumble said that its total revenue fell 10% and total paying users fell 16%.
The paradox: complaints have been growing even as Hinge’s user base grows. One cause may be demand consolidation. Daters fatigued by options may find shelter in Hinge and opt to pay for premium tools that could increase their chances — but greater spend doesn’t guarantee better experiences, especially if systemic issues like ghosting or mismatched intent continue.
Trust, Safety and Legal Pressure on Dating Apps
Trust on dating apps is the new “flashpoint.” That lawsuit was a class-action case that accused Match Group of exploiting its product to make “addictive” products that focus on profit over relationships; it eventually went to arbitration, but the message resonated with users. In a letter to Match, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Collins and the others asked the company to take four steps in support of its users’ safety, ranging from proactive enforcement of its terms of service and intaking reports from suspected victims — as compared with now, when users can only report behavior against themselves — to tracking how many actively paying members it has banned in response to reports.
Hinge says it uses feedback from daters and community partners to influence product choices. Limits on unread messages, safety prompts and better profile formats are meant to keep bad actors away. But the gap of perception persists: a lot of users still feel like the platform encourages endless browsing and upselling, rather than steady progress toward real-world dates.
Beyond the App Experience: Culture, Money and AI
Some headwinds aren’t purely product-driven. Alignment on values has grown more difficult as culture and politics have divided young adults. Financial stress, from rent to wages, may dampen appetite for dating or make first dates feel higher stakes. And the arrival of AI — from bot-enabled inboxes to responsive-profile dating bots — adds a new level of insecurity to every flirtation.
It is those forces that help explain why Hinge today can feel different from the service politicians accused of breeding casual sex — if not generations possessed by a sexual revolution driven hard and fast by hormones — back in the day. The app has matured — more features, more rules, more money to be made — while the users are still cautious and budget-conscious and hoping for simpler ways to connect with real people.
What It’s Like Now for Daters Using Hinge Today
It’s not that there are no partners to be had on Hinge; its usage has grown more than 400 percent since February, according to McLeod, who described it as a veritable “honeypot.” What the early days of digital dating had in common with the rest of social media was a just-browsing ethos. But what makes this moment so new is that people will willingly go riding off into cyberspace for love in the same way they were willing to fly halfway around the world in pursuit of intimacy.
Clear filters, specific prompts and rapid pivots to actual IRL plans can help cut through the churn. If Hinge can fill the chasm between its bustling economy and people’s wistful recollection of a lighter, luckier time, it will decide whether today’s skeptics become tomorrow’s success stories.
