How Online Dating Algorithms Ruin Dating

From serendipitous encounters to swiping on an app, from Match.com to Tinder – online dating has changed how we meet, date, and relate. Not for the better, I argue.

Image credit: Steve Cutts

Last year, I received a lot of positive feedback from my coverage of Mozilla Foundation’s Valentine’s Day report “Romantic AI Chatbots Don’t Have Your Privacy at Heart”. This year, I will celebrate the upcoming holiday on Futurist Lawyer by taking the issue of technology and romantic love to another level. We will discuss the deeper implications of online dating.

To be clear, I am not against online dating as a concept. I know that many people have met their partners in that way and it has led to many happy marriages and families - presumably. At the same time, I strongly believe that the design of online dating apps and the way algorithms govern new relationships are harmful and that the disadvantages of using online dating apps outweigh the advantages, more and more by the year.

In general, information technology and the sad remains of the attention economy are driving people towards isolation. For a good reference, see The Anti-Social Century by Derek Thompson for The Atlantic. Many people, more people than ever I think, are suffering from loneliness and opting out of dating altogether due to understandable frustrations.

Online dating sites and apps are seeing the effects. If we look at Match Group, the parent company of 45 dating sites and apps, including Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish, its net worth is $8.58 billion per 1/6/2025, down 82% from its all-time high of $46.58 billion in 2021. Last year, the popular dating app Bumble had to “swipe left" on 30% of its workforce after reporting a net loss of $32 million on its financial report for Q4 2023.

A Forbes Health Survey from last year shows that 79% of online dating users from Generation Z and 80% of Millennials feel burned out by dating apps. Consistent with these findings, is a survey by Axion and Generation Labs from 2023, which shows that 79% of college and graduate students across the US said they didn’t use any dating apps on a monthly basis. There seems to be a broad consensus that the “golden age of dating apps” is over. Bustle.com refers to a TikTok video by NY-based comedian, Keara Sullivan, who I think put it eloquently:

“If you met your partner on a dating app two years ago, you caught the last chopper out of ‘Nam.”

Even though Gen-Z is ditching the dating apps, I will argue that the dependency on online dating algorithms has done lasting damage to human relationships and on how we meet, or don’t meet, people in general. This damage was done by young and naïve entrepreneurs who saw a huge business opportunity but lacked the foresight, emotional maturity, and wisdom to see the far-reaching implications of what they built. Simultaneously, the market-driven, Western democracies didn’t know what was happening and couldn’t react.

Online dating apps have, on one hand, monetized, and on the other hand cultivated, the fear of rejection and loneliness. Dating apps reward anti-social behavior and have contributed greatly to an unhealthy obsession with looks, status, and materialism. This has in turn created an unfair caste system for dating opportunities. Human relationships are now more transactional, superficial, and unsatisfying, and the apps have inflicted a lot of unnecessary emotional pain on addicted users.

When I discuss this with my family and friends, they are always surprised about how strong my resentment towards dating apps is. They don’t get it. After reading this ≈5.000 word report, you hopefully will. Am I being too harsh in my assessment?
Let me know - your input is very welcome!

What we will cover in this post:

• How the online dating pioneer, Match.com, developed its algorithm

• The concept of “cognitive dissonance”

• The “dating app paradox”

• A lawsuit against Match.com filed last year on Valentine’s Day.

• Tinder’s algorithm

• The science of swiping

• “Cognitive swiping” and eliminating the fear of rejection