Bumble cuts ~350 employees as dating apps face a reckoning

BlackPenguins , 3 months ago

I paid for a month of Bumble and that's how I realized it's a scam. I get monetizing your business. But they wanted me to pay them to extend a window of how long a girl has a chance to respond after I like them. You only get 24 hours.

I'm smart enough to know women have lives. And what if my "soulmate" didn't see my like because she didn't log in to the app for a few days? The app shouldn't shake me down for more cash just to keep my visibility. You can monetize features, and perks, and number of swipes. But don't monetize the ability for people to meet. In my opinion OkCupid is still the best one around.

merthyr1831 , 3 months ago

Dating apps all cannibalised their own services by creating tiered access. amazing work besties

casmael , 3 months ago

Yo get fucked I hope they all go out of business

rambaroo , 3 months ago

Fuck wall street. Profits are once again up, but it's just not enough for these greedy fucking investors. These people are out of control.. It's only a matter of time before non-tech companies start getting impacted.

Syntha , 3 months ago

Profits are up? The articles literally tells you in the first sentence that Bumble is losing money.

solrize , 3 months ago

Why did Bumble have 350 employees in the first place? What does the app even do? I'm old enough to remember Craigslist personals. That was basically a handful of perl scripts and it worked very well, except it needed a bit more moderation to keep out the sex workers, and they ended up shutting it down. I guess Tinder has that swipe left swipe right thing, but no idea how much staff is behind it.

kttnpunk , 3 months ago

Nah RIP Craigslist personals, it was one of the only safeish places to advertise sex work -imo these services should be state-or-community-funded, free AND respecting of privacy, ideally. Maybe it did need more moderation; but even more so it needed less outrage about the useful connections and exchanges of services it enabled. We should always mourn the old web, sure it was flawed like anything else 20 years ago but it was still faaaaaaar better than the google-ravaged wasteland of today.

uzay , 3 months ago

Chasing endless growth in a dating app is missing the point of a dating app

chunkystyles , 3 months ago

When it's really more of a game of inches...

Kusimulkku , 3 months ago

The near-term product roadmap will focus on AI and enhanced safety measures, Jones said, as well as features designed to appeal to younger audiences.

will focus on AI

Oh boy

Rumbelows , 3 months ago

I know, I snorted at that.
Oh, shit we’re losing money because we pursued endless growth instead of the UX for customers….quick, uhhh….AI!

KingThrillgore , 3 months ago

Imaginary girlfriends are the new normal for dating!

Don't tell these companies about vtubers...

otter , 3 months ago

Huh, so people DO get tired with apps nickel and diming every interaction

Want to filter by more than 2 things? Pay up. Want to send a message? Pay up. Want some privacy measures? Pay up. Also the features are scattered across multiple paid plans, with separate per-item costs for roses/likes/super-likes etc.

This isn't limited to Bumble either

rambaroo , 3 months ago

The title and subtitle are misleading. Their profits went up over the last year, just not as much as a bunch of fucking investors wanted them to. The title makes it sound like they're actually struggling when they're not

autotldr Bot , 3 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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While up from the same period a year ago, earnings came in below Wall Street expectations and were paired with a disappointing Q1 2024 forecast — sending Bumble’s stock tumbling ~10% in after-hours trading.

The near-term product roadmap will focus on AI and enhanced safety measures, Jones said, as well as features designed to appeal to younger audiences.

“We believe these actions will strengthen our foundational capabilities and enable us to continue delivering new and engaging user experiences that create healthy and equitable relationships,” Jones said during a call on today’s earnings.

Bumble has also had to contend with internal organizational shifts in the wake of founder Whitney Wolfe Herd stepping down as CEO last November and transitioning into the role of executive chair.

Dating apps generally — including Match Group’s — have seen declining revenue from users reluctant to fork over cash for premium add-ons.

Hinge, among others, meanwhile, is embracing the move to IRL meetups, launching a fund and promotions to sponsor singles events.

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The original article contains 450 words, the summary contains 166 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!