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Wait, aren’t the majority of these apps owned by Match Group?

It makes sense that their actual product would be near-total access to data from people ignorant of the value of this data and behavior on these apps.

Anyway, dating apps are garbage for the majority of men. You’re better off just going to a bar or social events and playing the numbers game in the meat market.

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I can't speak for the state of apps today, but when I used them a decade ago I found they would be valuable for most people. It worked out for me and I'm not extraordinary. At the time though you could ignore all the match/swipe gimmicks (which leads to superficial cursory evaluation) and just send messages directly, drawing on someone's profile.

Searching for people yourself on these apps got entirely replaced by the match/swipe gimmicks. They claimed it was for your own good to reduce harassment or whatever, but it's really just more profitable to gatekeep.

It does seem anti-user. A decade ago I could sort by % personality/interest in common (on OKC) or just look at everyone (on PoF). I can only imagine that women are still harassed, and that a messaging filter would have otherwise been trivial to implement.

And now many of the apps hide people liking/swiping you unless you pay them! It's extremely predatory.

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