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What's really interesting to me is the temporary flattening in "met online" around 2000 - 2005. What caused that?

My theory: it's the transitional period between online dating as a novelty, and online dating as an obvious default for youth who grew up online.

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I think you’re mostly right, but there’s more nuance to it. I think traditional dating sites like match.com started to plateau around then, in part due to lack of innovation, but also due to the rising popularity of social networking eating into the market. Then in the later 2000s you start to get more innovative sites in the space like OkCupid, as well as, more niche-catered sites, and as a result people started moving back into more explicitly dating oriented sites. Finally, post 2010 you start to see the proliferation of mobile-oriented dating apps (and mobile social apps in general) which is why you see things really take off then.

Dotcom crash made online-anything less attractive?

It's a plateau, not a drop. Nothing became less attractive; the shift from offline to online dating just stalled for a few years.

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