Finances

Tinder and Hinge have recently released new ultra-premium subscriptions for what they called “motivated daters,” but a significant population of singles would rather not pay the steep price for a dating app experience. In fact, the more companies try to monetize dating app features, the more it seems to turn off daters altogether.

A recent report from Bloomberg found that people are gravitating back to in-person events like speed dating, which saw a 63 percent increase in participation this past year according to Eventbrite. And they are reluctant to pay the $500 subscription for Tinder or $60 subscription for Hinge, though Match Group has noticed an uptick in revenue since releasing the premium services.

According to Bloomberg, third-quarter downloads for Hinge were the app’s best ever and that 1.3 million of its users pay for a subscription. Bumble will be offering short term subscriptions as well as its own high-priced premium service in the coming months.

Grindr employees got approval from the National Labor Relations Board for holding an election to form a union. The ballots will become available November 22nd, and voting will end on December 13th.

According to Bloomberg Law, the government agency ruled in November that a group of about 100 employees can vote on whether they want to be represented by the Communications Workers of America, which guided the employees through its first round of voting earlier this year.

NLRB Regional Director Mori Rubi made the decision to allow Grindr employees to move forward with unionizing. According to Bloomberg, she countered arguments by the company’s management team that product managers should be considered supervisors and therefore be unable to unionize under the current labor laws. Instead, she argued that product managers don’t hold enough power in directing other employees, according to the report.

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, will be expanded to include a dating app feature.

According to Fox Business, Musk recently held a company-wide meeting on the anniversary of his acquisition of Twitter to announce where he sees the platform headed. At the meeting, employees report that he said that X will become a “fully fledged” dating app in 2024, according to Business Insider.

At the meeting, he also mentioned that banking and transaction features will be added to the app in the near future, referring to these two major moves as being part of the new “everything app” he envisions for X.

Bumble’s founder and longtime CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd will step down from the helm, and Lidiane Jones, the CEO of workplace messaging tool Slack will take over in January. Herd will move to Executive Chair of the company.

The news comes as Bumble’s stock price has fallen over 80 percent since it went public two years ago (from $76 to below $14). The dating app is not alone. Match Group is also going through a rough period, thanks to inflation and other economic concerns. Members are dropping their subscriptions and not using paid services on the apps, causing a decline in revenue the last few quarters.

Herd supported Jones in a statement: “This move to Executive Chair gives me the ability to step forward into a new and exciting role, get back to my founder roots and bring immense passion and focus to this next chapter of growth,” According to CNN, Wolfe Herd also added that she and Jones would be “fantastic partners.”

The stock price for dating app conglomerate Match Group dropped after the company revealed that its Tinder app saw a significant drop in paying users. Shares went down more than 15 percent to $29, the lowest price it has traded for since the company spun off from IAC in July of 2020.

According to Newsweek, Match Group sent a letter to shareholders in early November with the news that Tinder had lost 826,000 paying customers. CEO Bernard Kim said in the letter: "While our collective efforts have put the company on much improved footing, there is still much work to be done.”

Match Group’s reported third quarter earnings were a highlight - they beat analyst estimates ($881.6 million compared to the expected $880.6 million), according to LSEG, formerly Refinitiv.

Dating app company Match Group announced it had settled a lawsuit with Google concerning the tech giant’s payment requirements for its Play Store.

Under the terms of the settlement, $40 million currently in escrow will be returned to Match, according to The Verge. Interestingly, Match Group also agreed to Google’s “user choice billing system,” which still allows for Google to get a cut of all transactions, even if Match users pay via Match Group’s payment systems.

Specifically, the settlement notes that by the end of March 2024, Match’s apps will implement the user choice billing system, which means that when dating app members opt to pay using Match’s payment systems, the company will give Google an 11 percent cut of its subscription fees and a 26 percent cut of all purchases. Or for users that go through Google’s in-app purchase system, Match Group will pay Google its standard fees (15 percent and 30 percent, respectively) for transactions.