Bumble Founder Returns As CEO Amid a Dating App Decline 27
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Bumble founder and executive chair Whitney Wolfe Herd, who stepped down as CEO at the beginning of 2024, is returning to the post in mid-March. Former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, who succeeded Herd, has resigned for "personal reasons" and will remain in the role until Wolfe Herd takes over. "As I step into the role of CEO, I'm energized and fully committed to Bumble's success, our mission of creating meaningful, equitable relationships, and our opportunity ahead," Wolfe Herd says in a statement. "We have exciting innovation ahead for Bumble in this bold new chapter." Bumble's share price has dropped by half since the app introduced a redesign and feature in April that let men send the first message in response to prewritten questions. "Bumble gained popularity in part because it was set up for women to message their matches first," notes The Verge.
"In Bumble's most recent earnings report, it said that the number of paying users had increased from 3.8 million to 4.3 million over the last year, however, average revenue per paying user dropped from $23.42 to $21.17, and its total revenue dropped slightly."
"In Bumble's most recent earnings report, it said that the number of paying users had increased from 3.8 million to 4.3 million over the last year, however, average revenue per paying user dropped from $23.42 to $21.17, and its total revenue dropped slightly."
It's hard to imagine a decline (Score:2)
your mom (Score:3, Funny)
I found your mom on there. She looks like she has some major vitamin D deficiency, which is odd because vitamin D is fat soluble so she has plenty of places to store it.
Re: (Score:1)
In a scam as obvious and well known as dating apps. About every two or three years when there's a slow news cycle you get a new story about how 95% of the users are men or bots. I haven't seen one in a while but the news cycle has been pretty freaking insane what were the election and a couple of wars. But it's not like anything has changed about the uselessness of dating applications
If anyone assumes dating apps are indeed 95% male, I challenge you to find me a single modern feminist who isn’t abusing one like their favorite shopping app. Also known as the real reason dating is on the decline.
The scam that sells the dating app as some kind of answer for relationships is dead thanks to feminism normalizing 304 behavior. Between that and divorce law, no smart man is sticking is dick or wallet in that. And few are even being chosen for that luxury, since women now think 80% of me
Articles heavily slanted to half of people (Score:2)
Can we get to news reporters taking an even look at the topic instead of heavily favoring one side of the story and othering everyone else?
1) Too often the voices and experts consulted for the dating and relationship articles are from 52% of the population and the other half's voices are never heard or even mentioned. Examples from the Pew Research survey - 25% of men receive unwanted explicit images, 21% of men have been harassed and 4% of men have been physically threatened on dating apps.
2) The repeated
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In a scam as obvious and well known as dating apps.
I met many women on dating apps, including one who is now my spouse.
The scams are sites like Ashley-Madison that promise free sex with no strings attached. Of course, those will attract 99% dudes.
But there are also legitimate sites.
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In a scam as obvious and well known as dating apps. About every two or three years when there's a slow news cycle you get a new story about how 95% of the users are men or bots.
Looks like another incel just outed himself.
I had no shortage of connections on this app despite it being "ladies-first" and as a matter of fact met my current fiancee on it. She's lovely, smart (a nationally published writer!) and age-appropriate.
Turns out women actually have brains in their heads, and if you put up an honest profile, women who share your interests and outlooks are happy to make matches. Save the shirtless/dick pics for Tinder, don't engage in obvious "resume" fluffing, and lay off ex
Dating apps are awful (Score:1)
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It doesn't help, but culture became unsustainable long before. Oral contraceptive was by far the biggest turning point. Dating apps are a drop in the pond for the forces preventing long term near universal pair bonding.
Out of the Malthusian frying pan into the societal collapse fire.
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They are contributing massively to incelism, the rise or right-wing ideology and resulting Trump victory
Modern feminist women think 80% of men are ugly by their date-shopping standards. You think men are the ones spreading STDs? Think again. Kind of hard to do that when the virgin men you’re not even getting an opportunity. 60% of men report they are single whereas only 35% of women report that.
The math adds up to 304. Every time.
Well played, feminists. You fucked yourself. And the entire point of dating. No prize there.
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Actual feminists are a tiny percentage and most chads are mid.
Technology and classical liberalism inevitably led here, but it could be worse ... we could not have technology and liberty. The current collapse is pretty comfortable, by historical standards. Maybe if AI weens us off biology it can even lead to something sustainable.
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What's it like living in the 1970s?
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They are contributing massively to incelism, the rise or right-wing ideology and resulting Trump victory
An inconvenient truth. young white males have been told since birth that they are horrible monsters, rapists and sexual offenders not for actions, but because as a male, they have penises.
So here we have a group who understand what the Democrats officially think of them. Not all, but we saw what happened to a Democrat that dared to not follow the narrative. Seth Moulton
When Moulton dared to say that he didn't want biological men running over his daughters on their Sports teams, his campaign manger re
It doesn't matter if women message first (Score:2)
Bumble's problem remains the same - the users suck. And until they do something about that, nothing is going to change. Half of the people you see were already married, another group was looking for a third, and there was an abundance of overweight single moms looking for top 1% men. Not a recipe for success.
Commercial conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
The more efficient a dating app is at producing good matches, the more of its customer base it loses. Until someone figures out a model for them that doesn't rely on this inherent contradiction to make money, they will continue to be terrible. My bet is the founder will 'refocus on fundamentals' aka not being crap, entice jaded users back, and then bail out so the next person can screw all the users over again for the $. They will basically trade user numbers for revenue in a cyclical fashion until someone comes up with a better idea.
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Young non-rich men pay, attractive younger women don't. That's your basic minimum, because that's how a combination of our culture and instinct work; if you're broadly desirable, the opportunities come to you. If you're not, you pay for them.
It then gets worse, because the app provider needs to do some kind of quality control to prevent psychos and criminals from using your app to hunt victims. That costs money.
Only then do you start to worry about the fact that the more success you have, the closer you
Re: Commercial conflict of interest (Score:2)
People age into the dating pool just as much as they age out. The business model is population growth.
Given work from home & nightclubs closing... (Score:2)
... where exactly are Gen-Z planning on meeting their other halves if they're not using dating apps? Most people don't meet their spouse at school/college or via friends despite what Hollywood would like us to believe so what will they do, hope to chat someone up on TikTok?
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Don't sell out to Match group (Score:2)
I started paying for Tinder, and right after charge #2 to my card they banned me from their whole monopoly.
No reason, no evidence, no nothing. Just we're keeping your money and F off. I'm happy my last match was a great find, as was my first. In between those, I think I only had 1 other good match.
I wish bumble lots of luck though. I'm happy they never sold out to big dating.
It's all about dating app demographics (Score:5, Interesting)
This article was an interesting read. I had coffee with a friend this morning who is a professor of psychology. I shared the article with her, and her comments were pretty pointed. "Seems like Bumble wants to farm men, now, instead of women. Given what's happening in the dating app world, that's understandable. Most women don't use dating apps, about 1 in 4, last time I checked, and Gen Z seems to have abandoned them entirely. Male engagement is about 1 in 3, but trending up, so it looks like Bumble is chasing this delta. Be interesting to see how this works out." According to the article, part of Bumble's success hinged on flipping the script, requiring women to message first. Their 2024 redesign, which allows men to send the first message in response to prewritten questions, is a pivot, which aligns neatly with existing research [wikipedia.org]: men initiate over 75% of first messages, while women respond selectively to fewer than 20%. Bumble seems to be hedging its bets by catering to traditional male behaviors, even though this undermines the app's original purpose of empowering women.
Bumble's redesign increased paying users, but revenue per user dropped, and overall revenue slipped. I'm thinking this is the cost of chasing that demographic -- one that is primarily composed of males. In a broader context, I believe my psychologist friend is right, and I think the writing is on the wall for dating apps. Men outnumber women 3 to 1 on the number one dating app, Tinder, and this ratio has been rock steady for years. And, to put not too fine a point on it, a Pew Research Center survey [pewresearch.org] showed that 51% of women report negative experiences with dating apps, and the Gen Z crowd seems to be ghosting them altogether -- a cultural shift, no matter how you slice it and dice it. If male engagement with dating apps is increasing [ssrs.com] while female engagement with dating apps remains constant, you don't have to be psychic to see where the whole dating app business model is headed.
We need a Biz-Speak Award (Score:2)
From the summary: "As I step into the role of CEO, I'm energized and fully committed to Bumble's success, our mission of creating meaningful, equitable relationships, and our opportunity ahead," Wolfe Herd says in a statement. "We have exciting innovation ahead for Bumble in this bold new chapter."
Is there an award for pompous, condescending verbal diarrhea? If so, this f^ckwit would win it, and probably place second as well. If Wolfe Fudgepack, or whatever his name is, actually said that in front of a l