Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

In 2014, former Tinder VP Whitney Wolfe, who previously had a "cofounder" title (and would later go on to found Bumble), sued IAC and Match over sexual harassment from another Tinder "cofounder" Justin Mateen, who is one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. (I put "cofounder" in quotation marks because it was an internal project at IAC and the history is a complicated.) Mateen was suspended and the lawsuit was settled for $1M.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/07/01...

https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/09/whitney-wolfe-vs-tinder/

http://valleywag.gawker.com/every-fucked-up-text-from-the-ti...

Earlier this year Match and Bumble both sued each other in the midst of an attempt from Match to acquire Bumble. I am a little lost but I think Match / Tinder sued for $450M for patent infringement and Bumble countersued for $400M for using the lawsuit to make them look less attractive to potential (non-Match) acquirers?

Does anyone else find poetic justice in the fact that all these dating apps have hilariously dramatic business relationships that aren't working out?

What do you mean not working out? Millions of dollars have been gained by many employees, and many millions added to company valuations. That is all winning the lottery in my book.

Match might have to find a model besides "buy the latest popular matchmaking firm"?

Why?

If they consistently screw over everybody else in the deal, people won't want to deal with them.

Hasn’t stopped them from dominating the market so far.

But I do believe they’re a shady company though.

Hubris before the fall.

IIRC, they own one of the few online dating sites that actually generates a profit: match.com. All of their other properties, particularly Tinder and OkCupid, are basically meant to get younger people hooked so that they will eventually convert to paying for Match.com.

This is absolutely untrue. There are many very profitable dating sites and apps. Tinder is a fantastic example of a dating app making money hand over fist since they began monetising, their revenue is in the hundreds of millions per quarter. Tinder is projected to be half of all Match groups revenue this year.

OkCupid started as a free, alternative, non-traditional dating site based on a full-spectrum of interests compatibility. Unfortunately, post-acquisition, it’s becoming yet another Tinder/Match pics-first shallow hookup site.

OkCupid began monetizing before being acquired and that's part of what made them attractive.

OkCupid sounds exactly like PlentyOfFish, also acquired by The Match Group.

You mean the Tidner that will make $800M in revenue [0] this year?

[0] https://www.recode.net/2018/8/8/17662746/tinder-revenue-matc...

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