[slimginz]

Hinge is owned by Match Group. Along with also owning Match.com they also own Tinder, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish, Black People Meet, Our Time, and about 20 more services. AFAIK the only "big" dating app that they don't own is Bumble. It's honestly insane how much of a monopoly Match Group has on the modern dating scene.

[Tangurena2]

To make things worse, Match.com translates profiles from one "platform" to another. So that interesting person you see on, say, PlentyOfFish never posted their profile to POF - they originally only wrote an OKCupid profile. If you bother to read the "terms of use" then you'll find they can do this.

Many times when it looks like someone else is interested in you, the appearance is made that they can only be reached by subscribing for money, it turns out that the person is not there, never was there and had abandoned the other platform due to lack of interest.

And paying for the service never makes it easier to get dates either.

[FiatLuxDave]

Match is known for buying out their competition.

So does anyone know if there is a startup accelerator specializing in making dating apps for selling to Match?

Something like: "Here's a list of features that users love, and here's a bunch of marketing techniques for making your userbase grow fast. Don't worry about monetization, Match is going to buy you out anyways. We're just going to keep on repeating doing this until Match runs out of money or everyone we know is rich."

[dnissley]

Usually there is some innovation with each new app they purchase. Of the big ones:

OkCupid: Matching using questions/answers + statistical modeling

Tinder: Simple swipe left/right model + hook up emphasis

Hinge: Emphasizes long term connections + "designed to be deleted"

So best way to get acquired would be to find a new niche and an innovative way to appeal to that niche.

[minikomi]

Here's mine:

Potential dates are matched with a set number of people at random.

The potential date interrogates the matches within a specific subject area, using a specified format and context.

After a preset length of time or number of questions, the quesioner is then asked to decide which respondent was human and which was a computer.

If the quesioner guesses human and is correct, they can choose to go on a date.

[durnygbur]

> Hinge is owned by Match Group [...] AFAIK the only "big" dating app that they don't own is Bumble.

Bumble/Badoo have some Russian connotations... so the choice is between cancer or syphilis. Within the last 10 years we voluntarily have delegated our mating preselection to them... and "in real world" is even worse...

[AlexandrB]

> Within the last 10 years we voluntarily have delegated our mating preselection to them.

I think this might be true for a subset of people, but I've personally had zero luck with online dating and have met all my partners IRL. It is interesting to consider if the FTC will ever take action on Match Group's near monopoly here.

[swagasaurus-rex]

In the real world is scarier. I seriously doubt it's worse, unless you live in a small town with no choices.

Dating apps lower the barrier to entry. This is actually a bad thing for men, because it floods the dating market with competition from men who would otherwise be too offputting or antisocial or meek. There is currently no way for women to filter out these men via software (they would if they could).

Just like in business, it's easier to stay in business if there is a barrier to entry.