Wrthy brings much needed accountability, safety, and transparency to the online dating industry
December 1, 2024
The current state of online dating
Just do a quick google search, and you can get a pretty good idea of how people feel about online dating these days. Just take a look at a few recent headlines:
There has become a consensus of sorts regarding the decline of the online dating experience. Theories abound on why dating apps seem to be worse than ever, including our favorite from journalist Cory Doctorow, who in 2023 coined the term “enshittification”. Basically, Doctorow says tech platforms start off trying to make their user experiences excellent because their first goal is to become popular and achieve scale. But over time, they inevitably pursue their ultimate goal of making money, which often ruins the user experience, rendering it “enshittified.”
Sound familiar? The reality is, dating apps are now 100% dedicated to driving paid user growth – making the “free” experience essentially unusable – and they are employing algorithms aimed to keep people swiping and subscribing. (Btw, “enshittification” was the American Dialect Society’s “Word of the Year” in 2023. Bravo, Cory)
A former Match Group executive confirmed this algorithmically driven approach in a 2023 conversation with Wrthy. When I asked him how they keep users on the platform, he told me the following. “We know when someone is about to churn, and of course, when their subscription is about to expire. We ensure their profile is getting attention in order to deliver a great experience and get them to stay on the platform.” In other words, yeah, we are totally gamifying your love life so you keep paying us money.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us” – Oliver Hazard Perry
It’s easy to blame the dating apps for the increasingly negative experience of dating online, and they are certainly part of the problem, but many users of these apps should also look in the mirror. According to one study, roughly 80% of people include information about themselves that contains “deviations” from the truth.
Of course, some of these “deviations” are harmless little white lies, like pretending you care about the local basketball team, or reading more than one book a decade. Others range from the comically short-sighted, like lying about your height (really, guys?) to not funny at all, like being married or lying about your family.
The reality is there is a lack of trust on these apps, and for good reason. We are matching with total strangers, and because of that, there is little to no social accountability. This manifests itself in all types of bad behavior, from catfishing, to the rudeness of ghosting, to despicable displays of misogyny and sexual harassment (and worse).
“Oh, I can’t quit you, babe, so I’m gonna put you down for awhile” – Led Zeppelin
A 2022 study showed four in five adults in the U.S. “experienced some degree of emotional fatigue” from online dating.
“People who experience burnout with dating apps are exhausted from constantly meeting new people, failing opportunities and lies,” said Rufus Tony Spann, Ph.D., a certified sex therapist . “Over time, the unfortunate misgivings of being on a dating app can cause someone to lose hope in the dating process and finding the right person.”
So while many users are taking regular breaks from the dating apps – a healthy thing to do, according to doctors – the rumor that “everyone” is leaving the apps is just not born out in the data. While growth has slowed over the past few years, there are more people online dating than ever before.
A One Poll/Forbes study from August 2023 found that online dating was the most popular way for people to find dates, according to 45% of respondents, compared to 33% who met dates through friends.
In a different study by The Knot, these were the top 5 most popular ways or places that married couples in their study met:
1. Online dating site or app
2. Friend of a friend or friends in common
3. At school
4. Through work
5. In a social setting
Online dating isn’t going anywhere, but there is surely a better way. Right?
The Dating Apps solution
“You could, in the near future, be talking to your AI dating concierge. You could share your insecurities. There is a world where your dating concierge could go on a date for you with other dating concierges”.
No, this is not a quote from Elon Musk, Sam Altman, or ChatGPT. This is from Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder and Executive Chair at Bumble, shared on stage at the Bloomberg Technology Summit on May 9th, 2024.
The founder of Bumble believes we need MORE bots in online dating, and less authenticity? That’s the solution? This is further proof that Bumble, and frankly most of the dating apps, have truly lost the plot. With cratering stock prices, Bumble and Match Group, who collectively own nearly 90% of the US online dating market with apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Plenty of Fish, are under tremendous pressure to show user and revenue growth. Of course they are all talking about AI, the hottest buzzword to hit the market in years, in order to get investors to pay attention and believe in these companies’ futures, despite their current challenges.
To be fair, they aren’t only talking about AI, as many are now pushing new ideas to revive user growth. For example, Tinder recently rolled out a $500-a-month “ultra premium” subscription tier. Bumble has shared that they will now allow men to make the first move on its app. Are you excited for the future yet?
The solution
The dating apps are here to stay, and despite all of our bashing, this technology has allowed many of us to find people we would never have a chance to meet in our everyday lives, and even find love. Oh, and to do all of this in our sweatpants while watching Baby Reindeer.
Back in the old days of 1995, before online dating, nearly 9 out of 10 people met others through their own social networks (no, not Facebook). If you met someone through your network, unless you were an asshole you wouldn’t ghost them, or send them unsolicited naked pics of yourself via AOL Instant Messenger. If you did, your friends, or family, or schoolmates, would hear about it, and they would likely not set you up again. There was social accountability, which modulated people’s behaviors and provided real world consequences if they acted like a jerk.
So how do we combine the technology of today with the social accountability of the past?
This is what we are creating at Wrthy. We aim to be the “trust and information” layer that sits atop the online dating industry. What does that mean in English you ask?
Wrthy enables women to see beyond the profile, and make more informed decisions about who she matches with, who she dates, and who she lets in her life. This is all done via a “Yelp like” review system, and a connected community of women who are there to support and empower each other on their respective dating journeys.
And for the guys? While there won’t be a similar review system where men can share their thoughts on women, there will be an opportunity for men to see where they stand, and stand out from the crowd. This will include the ability to solicit recommendations from the women in his life. Essentially, the modern version of having a friend, co-worker, or family member “vouch” for you.
While we won’t be able to solve all of online dating’s problems, we believe that together, we can create a better experience for single people everywhere. Come join us on our mission to finally bring accountability, safety, and transparency to online dating.
