[cromd]

I think you're right about 100-1000 being a count for "likes" rather than "matches" (terminology would differ by platform). If a woman had 100 people with a mutual interest, ready to talk, they wouldn't keep swiping to get to 200.

(Not super relevant to your point but maybe to the whole page) I think many swiping apps mostly show people that are already interested, which seems reasonable as a prioritization method. So a "like" from a woman is converted into an instant "match". I've heard some women brag like "90% of guys I swipe on like me back", but there's some bias in there.

I've also known men who are perfectly likable, who took a more passive approach, and never received a single incoming "like" from a woman in months. It's inconceivable that in a city of millions, _nobody_ finds the man attractive, not even the bottom 1% of women. It's just that they're not showing the profile much, and it's unclear if they're even giving it a tiny amount of random exposure. Even if you swipe, it's probably not enough to get to the top of the pile of thousands of horny dudes. So one has to buy the exposure for an hour or so then, possibly for hundreds of dollars a month. It's a good scheme, and the platforms like the information asymmetry on how it all works too - many people are guessing about things in these threads, which platform employees know the simple answer to.