Hinge Subscription Baiting
The folks at subreddit hingeapp ban any discussion of Hinge algorithms. Perhaps they're associated with the company? So posting here instead.
Preface:
We should all help and encourage each other to live our best lives possible - eating more healthy, exercising our bodies in whatever way possible (gym, outdoors, hobbies, competition, whatever motivates someone), building healthy minds and hearts, pursuing educational and career advancement, etc. No reason to disparage each other, no reason to try to hold anyone back. Everyone, themselves, and their partners, would probably be happier if we all did this. Some people are in the midst of their journey through all of this. I hope they keep it up, I hope they continue on and make it to their destination.
I am not in the midst of this journey. Having already put in many years, a decade or two, of work throughout my life - physical health, educational accomplishments, professional career accomplishments, psychological and emotional development, developing indoor and outdoor hobbies.
Therefore, I have my particular preferences: women that are also beyond most of that journey. To start with a couple very basics: a girl, that's fit, that has some kind of professional career, that is engaging life in some ways. Not Olympic athletes, not super models, just your average fit girl next door that has a professional career. There are lots of these types of women in the world. I have dated multiple from meeting in real life. Those particular ones didn't work out for a variety of reasons, but we met and had no problem being attracted and dating. I try online dating to cast a wider net than I have the ability to meet in real life, to find my particular person.
Given that, Hinge has resulted in this:
New account, start at the max 8 likes per day (didn't know this when I started).
Cycle #1: Endless sequence of profiles that are: morbidly obese, unemployed, school of hard knocks, smoking, drinking, often all pictures from their car driver seat or couch, etc. Anytime I close the app, when I reopen, the last prior profile shows up. After say 30 no's, find 1 that maybe appears to barely be along in their journey, so I relent and barely say yes. Repeat until 8 yes's are sucked out of me. The immediately next profile is a girl, attractive, professional career, engaging life. Attempt to match, hit with the Hinge popup: "Out of likes, upgrade now for $34.99/month". Ha, I see what you're doing Hinge App. I'm okay for now. I'll wait 24 hours for the matches to reset and try that last prior profile.
Cycle #2: It's 24 hours later. Reopen the app. The prior profile is gone. Replaced with one of the aforementioned unattractive profiles. Haha, Hinge App, you got me, you sneaky little rascal. I'll try this again. Back to the endless sequence of unattractive profiles. Again, after say 30, relent and say 1 yes. After relenting some amount of times, immediately after the last relent, attractive profile. Attempt to match, Hinge popup, $34.99/month. Ah, I see now. Well, I'll try again just to confirm.
Cycle #3: Again 24 hours later. Attractive profile gone, unattractive profiles back in business! Repeat the pattern just to see if anything changes. Nope. After the final relent, immediately next attractive profile, $34.99/month. The jig is up! I definitely see what you're doing here, Hinge App.
Cycle #N: Proceeded through a few more cycles out of curiosity. At some point, noticed that the Hinge popup changed: "Out of likes, upgrade now for $16.99/week". Hmm, interesting, wonder if that's just randomly selecting a subscription level to give you a variety of options. Despite all prior cycles being $34.99/month. Obviously all subscriptions levels are available at any time, but they're targeting you with 1 particular subscription level at the initial Hinge popup. Let me try another cycle.
Cycle #N+1: Repeat all the same. Hinge popup, $16.99/week. Hmm, appears to be set at the $16.99/week popup now.
Cycle #N+M: Again proceed out of curiosity. Same pattern, unattractive profiles, relent likes, attractive profile, popup, wait 24 hours, attractive profile disappears. But I feel something is different recently. Ah, I see, I'm only relenting like 4 times before "out of likes" and attractive profile pops up. Could it be that Hinge is detecting resistance to subscribing, shoving me down the pipeline to subscription faster?
Cycle #N+M+1: Proceeding out of further curiosity. Repeat all the same. Hinge popup, $7.99 for 24 hours. What the??? That's not even one of the subscription levels offered! Where'd this come from?
Conclusion:
I have no idea how Hinge works internally. But all of my evidence suggests to me that they have designed a subscription baiting algorithm that is essentially: feed unattractive profiles until free likes are used up, feed attractive profile that can't be liked without paying, offer higher price option, if user does not subscribe then revoke attractive profile, if user continues to not subscribe, then gradually decrease the free likes to force them to the subscribe gate faster, and also decrease the price through this process to find the price point at which they relent and subscribe.
I have no problem paying for dating services. Just be up front and honest about it. I pay $30 - $40 to go to singles events, and meet good quality matches there. This Hinge approach just feels scummy, when they advertise otherwise. Because they probably know that if they were up front and paid subscription only to start, then their pipeline of baiting free users in, and driving them to subscription gates, would be less profitable. So I am very skeptical at even paying $34.99 once for a month to an organization that has already demonstrated their level of scum. Because who is to say there isn't more scum, more gates, after the $34.99 gate? I don't want to support that approach towards screwing with people. I may eventually subscribe once for a month just to satisfy curiosity of what is beyond that gate, but not now. And if ever, it's going to feel like gambling.