Mass layoffs at dating app provider Bumble are the latest sign that more people are splitting from the high-tech way of making connections.
The Texas-based online dating platform disclosed in a securities filing last week that it plans to lay off about one-third of its workforce, amounting to some 240 employees, with an anticipated savings of about $40 million US.
Bumble reported a total revenue of about $247 million in its most recent first-quarter earnings, down almost eight per cent from the same period a year ago.
“Bumble, like the online dating industry itself, is at an inflection point,” Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd said in a note to employees. The company has been “rebuilding” in recent months, which “requires hard decisions,” the note said.
A month earlier, Texas-based Match Group — which owns the dating apps Tinder, Hinge and OKCupid — announced plans to cut 13 per cent of its workforce, the company’s first big move since CEO Spencer Rascoff took over in February.
Rascoff wrote in a March open letter on LinkedIn that the company’s apps were failing some users and don’t feel like places “to build real connections.”
According to research firm Sensor Tower, in 2024, worldwide monthly active user growth for dating apps slid 10 per cent year over year. For Match, Hinge showed positive growth, but not enough to offset the drop from Tinder.
Growing numbers of people appear to be trying speed dating and other old-fashioned ways of making romantic connections, with Gen Z — people born roughly between 1997 and 2012 — leading the exodus.
Dating apps in ‘a bit of a crisis’
Treena Orchard, a researcher and author of Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and The Darker Side of Dating Apps, said dating apps are “in a bit of a crisis” at the moment.
“People are leaving in droves, and the industry is scrambling to think about how to keep their current users and maybe continue to grow in some capacity,” she said in an interview with CBC.
Orchard, an anthropologist and associate professor at Western University in London, Ont., said some people are leaving because the apps simply don’t work for them.
Information Radio – MB6:14The Swipe Reversal: Why Gen Z is Breaking Up with Dating Apps
Cell phones have revolutionized how we connect with others, including how we date. With just a swipe, a match could lead to something meaningful, but some young people are choosing to disconnect from dating apps altogether. CBC’s Gavin Axelrod explores the trend of Gen Z turning away from their phones in search of long-term love and the reasons behind this shift.
Costs have also been rising for paid versions of the apps — which allow users to access potential matches they…
Read More: Is the romance with dating apps over? Big cuts at Bumble, Match raise
