[gambiting]

Having too many men can impact the experience women have, and if they leave then the entire platform collapses. The cost to "host" a user is the same regardless of gender but platforms like these work only if the gender ratio is at least somewhat balanced - the fee seems to help with that, just like it does in a physical club(where it also doesn't cost any more to host a man than it does a woman).

[est31]

Gender imbalance also negatively impacts the experience of the men: nobody wants too much competition.

Currently there are 3 men for every woman on Tinder [0].

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/975925/us-tinder-user-ra...

[insickness]

Gay men are charged $8-13 while gay women are charged $7. Gay men and women aren't dating each other so this has nothing to do with gender imbalance.

[theredlion]

Gay men can choose not to pay if they are unhappy with the price

[gambiting]

Well yes, but at least in some places companies introducing different prices based on things like gender or race are not legal. Recently in the UK there was a case where a pub had a promotion where men paid more for drinks on the International Womens day, and someone took them to court over it and won - the court agreed that such pricing based in gender is not legal in the UK. On the other hand, clubs do this all the time without a fuss, but I suspect it's because no one challenged them legally on it yet.

In general I'm not a fan of the "gay people can just chose not to pay" argument - it sounds too similar to the one where some companies argued they should be allowed to deny gay people service, since they can simply go somewhere else.