Time for the HN people to get together and build a superior product? I think we could do better.
In fact, some are very popular, like Tinder and Hinge. But they don't swallow up Grindr, because Grindr is still the place with the most gay men. The value of the app is 90% in that.
There is SOME merit to it, too. Certainly, being closeted is easier on Grindr versus Tinder/Hinge, and that might describe the majority of gay men. Grindr also gives the user much, much more control and information. You don't have to swipe, you can just approach, like you're at a bar.
Many just because they don't want too, or don't want to manage more than 1 app.
We also see several new apps spring up and just never gain traction.
It has developed a stronghold because most still use it, and that likely just isn't changing anytime soon.
If enough people don’t use it, than people will just download it and see that no one uses it and never open it again.
Really the only other app with a serious enough use is Scruff. By nearly every metric it is a better app and does some really good things. But even being on both and basically bouncing between the 2 most of my conversations end up on Grindr.
There is another web app that has gained serious traction for offering a… unique value proposition but I am purposefully not going to name it here so someone doesn’t look it up and see something they don’t want to see. (I will just say there is a reason it’s a web app instead of an actual app)
I still think, if there was an app that was completely free, and optimized for cost reduction with very unobtrusive ads, it could get somewhere. Right now the pricing levels are atrocious, and there's a scratch for the people to stop using it because of it, in addition to hostile UX.