Lumen Becomes Part of Bumble
Contributed by: Editor on Wednesday, January 20 2021 @ 09:58 am
Last modified on Wednesday, January 20 2021 @ 11:47 am
In a not a so surprising move Lumen's parent company Bumble (which was called Magic Lab at one point) has decided to close Lumen down and move all users to Bumble. Lumen was a dating service designed for singles 50 years and older. On November 23rd November 2020 Lumen was fully shut down and access to the service was cut off for all users.
The reason this was not a surprise is that early in 2020 Chappy a dating app for gay singles was also shut down by Bumble. Ever since Bumble's founder Whitney Wolfe Herd took over as CEO of Magic Lab she has been reshaping the holding company and their brands.
So what happened to those with a Lumen premium subscriptions? The renewals were paused on October 20th, 2020. All those with subscriptions beyond the shut down date of November 23 will be refunded for the period of time remaining. On the Lumen FAQ page it was mentioned these refunds may take several weeks.
One interesting thing to note in the section of the Lumen FAQ that talks about refunds it mentions "...but given the large number of subscribers we have...". This seems to indicate that Lumen was doing well and making money. I am not sure why it was closed then especially since the Over 50's/Seniors dating niche has a large audience with disposable income. Most companies that own dating services tend to actual keep creating new brands in the hopes of finding the next big service. In the last 20 years of me following the industry I have found most popular dating services reach a peak and then ever so slowly start to fade away as the younger generation grows up and latches onto the next dating startup.
Anyways I am sorry to see Lumen go. It seemed to have been on course to become a popular destination for seniors and was closed to early. I even had enough faith in the project that I had created a dating topic for it to hold the articles we had written about the service.