[t4t]

I think the main complaints overall with apps like Grindr, Lex et al comes in a few parts:

1) Mainstream dating apps are full of very profit driven patterns, and feel manipulative and corporate. A fair followup would be why would t4t not eventually become like this? I think probably the main differentiator is that t4t is written to run extremely cheap, and my goals for it are mostly just for it to support me financially. I have gotten quite far as a single person team, and currently I am using something like 2% of the processing power within my payment tier on Supabase. There is huge growth potential with little cost increase.

2) Probably the bigger issue is that there is a generational divide between "old queers" and "young queers", and the divide does seem to fall largely on trans comfort. Many older gays feel like their space is invaded, and many younger ones feel discriminated against. I think this pattern plays out regardless of gender. It is helpful to set intentions from the start, and so the intentions of this app from the start are to be most friendly to the "new school" way of seeing things.

3) Finally, these apps are all pretty explicitly sexualized. I know that might sound funny given how sexual the app I created can get, but I am not really pushing that. This is just a free and open community space nothing more. You can use it for whatever you like. You can date on it but you can also just share hot takes and thoughts.

[brimwats]

OP, I love your passion, but as someone who's been in these trenches for a long time as a visibily queer person, you are a Titanic heading for an iceberg of legal issues in the US, UK,and a few other places. You are putting yourself and your users at an extremely high risk of outing, doxing, and potential legal issues. The fact that you haven't addressed these issues scares me and it should scare you.

[intended]

You are going to need content moderation, and you are going to need it quick as you scale.

This is the one thing that doesn’t scale. There’s a bunch of T&S advice and best practices out there.

Get a press kit ready. Be clear on what is and isn’t allowed.

In the EU, you would need to be able to provide access to appeals if you cross a certain size (VLOPs).

I mention this because you are a 1 person team.