Are the 'others' prohibiting dates rather than facilitating them?

Major dating app companies, such as Tinder, Bumble, Hinge and Badoo pride themselves on the vast amounts of users that they have. They use it in their marketing, throughout their apps and on their websites.

Let's take Badoo’s homepage:

477 million users! Why wouldn’t you sign up? The more users you have the more credibility you must have? The greater the chance of meeting ‘the one’?

Surely it's every single’s dream, put in your preferences and start swiping and liking until your heart’s content, or when you run out of likes. When you do run out of likes, do not panic because for a monthly fee you can become a ‘premium member’ and send unlimited likes or swipes.

But, if that is the case, then why is it that singles commonly claim to be lonelier whilst using dating apps compared to when they don’t?

We have a theory that by offering people too much choice 24/7 and the pressure of finding someone to go on a date with, creates a paralysing paradox which often leads to inaction as opposed to action.

By offering unlimited swipes or likes with the promise of endless possible matches people are not having to make a decision as the ‘perfect person’ is just one more swipe away. It is also leading to people becoming hyper critical of other users profiles which again leads to inaction. This in turn leads to users matching with people simply for the endorphin rush/ego boost because they have no intent on actually chatting or meeting their match.

At Thursday we believe that dating apps should be used to facilitate singles meeting more regularly than they currently are. Once a week maybe? That’s why we’ve made Thursday for people who don’t like or have given up using dating apps. By limiting the app to only work on one day of the week we're pooling all people together who want to act and date, there can be no more ‘playing it cool’ and not messaging back for a few days, sending unlimited likes or ghosting. That's not what exciting dating is about.

Everyone that uses Thursday has been connected in the same frame of mind of wanting to match, chat and meet that very day. Does it take a degree of spontaneity? Yes. Does it make dating exciting again?

Absolutely. But that’s exactly what dating has always been about.

We’re using technology to get people off technology. People lead busy lives and are spending too much time on dating apps anyway and we want to change that. The idea behind is we spend as a little time as possible on a dating app but still date efficiently. As we mentioned before, how does once a week sound?

Have we cracked the code of online dating by simply making it less available? Time will tell but we're confident.

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