Image: Hinge

Match Group announced in its first quarter earnings report that Tinder’s paying users were down for the sixth quarter in a row, but Hinge’s paying users continue to rise.

According to Tech Crunch, Hinge has seen a whopping 31 percent increase in paying users year over year, now up to 1.4 million. This is far less than Tinder’s 10 million paying users, but as Tinder continues on its downward trend, its paying users dropping 9 percent from this time last year, Hinge offers a beacon of hope.

Dating apps in general have struggled in the last year, and companies like Match Group and Bumble have been trying to address it with more exciting paid features and additional security protocols, like Verification on Tinder. However, dating app users continue to drop their subscriptions and opt not to pay for features, especially younger users who are turning to free platforms like social media apps to connect.

Founder and former CEO of Bumble Whitney Wolfe Herd told audiences at the Bloomberg Technology Summit that dating apps should lean heavily into AI, including chatbots that can advise users and even go on dates for them.

Herd, who stepped down last year, noted that Bumble will use AI "to help create more healthy and equitable" dating experience, according to Gizmodo.

“You could, in the near future, be talking to your AI dating concierge. You could share your insecurities,” Wolfe Herd said on stage at the Summit, according to Gizmodo. “There is a world where your dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierges.”

Dating app Tinder continues to lose paying subscribers according to Match Group’s latest earnings report. Match Group’s overall revenue for Q1 has been impacted by Tinder’s ongoing struggles, but it continues to hold strong in the dating app market overall.

According to Fast Company, Match Group said that Tinder’s paying user base for the first quarter fell 9 percent from the same quarter last year. The company’s CEO Bernard Kim remained optimistic, saying that they expect to slow user declines in the second half of the year.

However, Match Group’s revenue is up, with net income at $123.2 million for the first quarter of 2024 compared to $120.8 million this time last year, according to Marketwatch. Revenue rose 9 percent for the company to $859.6 million, compared to $787.1 million the same time last year. (Match Group revenue also beat overall analyst expectations of $855.8 million.)

Image: photoroom

OkCupid and AI-powered app Photoroom have partnered to introduce a new tool that helps erase your ex from your best photos.

According to OkCupid’s press release, the “Ex-Terminator” is a new feature designed to help users digitally remove their exes from photos they want to post on the dating app. Using AI technology, Photoroom seamlessly edits out unwanted people, giving OkCupid users a chance to update their profiles with new solo lifestyle.

Interested people can go to Photoroom’s website and see the promotional page with OkCupid, dubbed “Erase Your Ex.” From there, you can drop an image and Photoroom will erase your ex and deliver your photo back to upload to OkCupid. (There’s also a link to join the dating app from the site if you’re not already a member.)

Bumble has unveiled the newest feature of its dating app, removing the requirement for women to make the first move with their matches. The app’s new CEO Lidiane Jones said that this is part of a larger relaunch of the app.

Until now, Bumble has required women to send the first message to a potential match, keeping them in control of who they want to communicate with. Now, the dating app has jettisoned its requirement to automate the process with the launch of “Opening Moves,” which lets female users choose from a list of prompts where matches can reply and start a conversation themselves. (Women can also create their own prompts.)

For same-gender and non-binary users, they can either set or respond to an Opening Move.

The FBI has issued a new warning for dating app users about a scam that involves “verification,” which raises more problems for the platforms as they roll out new safety features.

Scammers have been targeting people signing up for dating apps by asking people they match with to verify their identity “for safety reasons.” They share links to websites to get them off the platform, where they can steal the victim’s money and private data, such as credit card information.

The fake website looks real to users, displaying “fake articles alluding to the legitimacy of the website,” according to the FBI’s announcement. The verification website prompts the victim to provide their name, phone number, email address, and credit card number to “complete the process.” When the victim submits the information, they are led to another dating website charging monthly subscription fees.