Is Dating App Usage Declining?

a dating coach says yes, in the worldwide numbers. When he recorded his video on the subject, he pointed to monthly active users down by 17 million people over the last few years and yearly downloads down by 50 million over a similar stretch. The apps are still the most common way couples meet. What has changed is how well they work for the average man.

He gave three signs. The first was the fall in active users and downloads above. The second was that the biggest dating app companies had seen their revenue flatten and their share prices drop. The third was that single men and women were both coming to feel the apps worked less well than they used to.

Those are his figures from that video, not a live count. Dating app numbers move as the apps and the users change, so check any figure you are about to repeat for who published it and when.

His explanation comes from his earlier career in online poker. At first the table was full of amateurs, which made it fun, and a few professionals took their money. Over time the professionals multiplied, and the amateurs went broke or gave up, until the game was too hard to be worth playing.

Dating apps followed a similar path, in his telling. At the start, people were honest, a bit awkward, and sincere. Then some men began to treat the apps as their main way to meet women. They tested photos, rewrote their pages, shared ideas and hired coaches, and the ones who did that got most of the dates.

Algorithms and paid tiers added to it. Anything that can be gamed rewards the people who study it. Meanwhile men and women looking for a relationship tend to leave once they find one, while those who want something casual stay.

For a woman who wants a relationship, the result is a field full of men who are polished and not looking for one. For the average man it is a field where the top few take most of the attention.

a dating coach notes a growing trend toward meeting offline. Running clubs have become a popular way to meet single people, and some of them have a dress code that shows who is single. Board game groups and other regular events do the same. Speed dating is making a comeback, he says.

His reading is that women are becoming more open to meeting men in the real world, and that many of the most in-demand women never needed the apps at all.

Searchers often ask whether usage is falling in America, in a particular year, or in one city such as New York. The figures a dating coach cited are worldwide. This article does not have a trustworthy count for one country, one year or one city, and it will not guess one.

For your own area, there is a better test than a headline. Open the app you use and look at how many women near you appear and how recently they were active. If the same few faces repeat and most were last active months ago, usage in your area is thin, whatever the national number says.

The apps still work for a man who treats them seriously. a dating coach's advice is that if you are going to play, be good at it. Choose photos with care, write a page that sounds like you, use the tools the app gives you, and send messages that refer to something real.

Fewer users does not have to mean fewer women near you. It means there is more room for the man who does the basics well, because many men give up when the early results are poor.

A fall in downloads can mean several things. Some people left because the apps disappointed them. Some found a partner and deleted the app, which is the apps working. Some moved to a different app. A single number cannot say which, so use it as a hint about direction and test the apps yourself.

The practical check is your own: the women you like, the likes you get back, the conversations that start and the dates you set over two weeks.

The second lesson is not to rely on the apps alone. a dating coach encourages learning to flirt and make a move in person, through events, groups and approaching women directly. The skill carries back to the apps, since the man who can hold a conversation face to face writes better messages and has better dates.

A man with two routes is much less affected when one of them slows.