Pre-Dating featured on BBC World Business Report: Is Speed Dating the answer to Tinder’s failing?

Full Episode. Interview Starts at minute 22:36 https://www.bbc.co.uk

Presented on BBC World Service’ WORLD BUSINESS REPORT. The latest business and finance news from around the world, on the BBC. Hosted by Ed Butler.

Tinder Advertisement: You went a little wild and took your Tinder date home… to meet your entire family. It starts with a swipe. Tinder.

Host Ed Butler: Swipe right, swipe left. Well Tinder may be the worlds best known dating app, but it’s parent company Match Group Inc. now says that its cutting 6% of its global workforce. This amid a continued slump in users paying for its most popular dating app. There’s been an 8% fall, apparently, in the number of paid Tinder users. So what’s going on — have Gen Z’s given up on finding love? Or are they just tired of meeting future partners online? Linda deLucca might know the answer to that. She runs Pre-Dating it’s a Speed Dating and singles events service in more than 50 cities here in the United States. Hi Linda. Explain to us first of all how you do this. I mean this is the old fashioned way, having people actually meet each other face to face, it sounds revolutionary. What happens?

Linda deLucca: It certainly is revolutionary. You know, and our company has a really unique perspective because we were founded back in, you know, 2001 before most dating sites or apps existed. So we watched their rise as they pretty much swallowed up the entire dating industry becoming the default way to date, a kind of, you know, golden age for apps. And apps and dating sites worked for many, many people, which is wonderful, but as you’re saying, that golden age for users and investors seems to have ended. I don’t think they’re going away, but their dominance is diminishing, and people are realizing they’re not the panacea for dating that they hoped they were.

Host Ed Butler: Yeah. I mean, it’s ending for Tinder at least or at least it seems to, at least in terms of declining market share. Right? It was the trailblazer. I mean, perhaps we should remind people in well, in the in the teens during that period when dating apps were very much on the rise, Tinder was the kind of the key name, wasn’t it, in the emergence of online dating?

Linda deLucca: Definitely. Definitely. But, you know, now the term that you hear so often is dating app fatigue, and it’s real. We hear people talking about it every day. Some people, especially Gen Y and Gen Z, they’ve been on the apps for 10 years now, and they’re tired and they’re frustrated. And apps just take more work and yield fewer matches than they used to.

Host Ed Butler: What’s wrong? I mean, is it the algorithms just don’t work?

Linda deLucca: Well, you know, you have the explosion of romance scams where 20% of users in the US have fallen for a scam on a dating app, though it’s probably much higher because most people don’t report it. Add in fake AI generated profiles, married, cheaters, and even harassment, and dating apps become increasingly unfriendly to users.

Host Ed Butler: And users have learned to be dishonest perhaps more than they were or maybe they always were?

Linda deLucca: Perhaps they were, but I think they’ve learned a lot. You know, they say, as the lawsuit from, earlier this year filed, of course, on Valentine’s Day, against Match Group said that they deliberately built addictive features keeping people on the app rather than finding real dates. And I think some users may agree with that claim.

Host Ed Butler: Briefly, I mean, is it all apps or or or is there a way back for the online systems?

Linda deLucca: Well, I think that people are really, really hungry for in person interactions. I think that’s undeniable.

Host Ed Butler: Right.

Linda deLucca: It’s just how we’re wired as human beings. So we’re seeing a huge uptick in people looking for in person events.

Host Ed Butler: We’ll have to leave there. I’m so sorry. Thank you very much, Linda deLucca. That’s it for World Business Report. Thanks for listening.