More and more people are paying for dating apps

Where it was once an incredible taboo to pull out your debit card for the premium version of your favorite dating app, more and more singles seem to be giving in. That's not surprising, as dating apps, despite their bad word-of-mouth, are still incredibly popular. In 2023, the Dutch downloaded dating apps a total of 4.9 million times and indicated that they collectively spent 68.9 million euros on those apps, which is 17 million more than the year before.

How come? Very simple: the free versions of the dating apps have become so annoying that people would rather pay a few euros to avoid that frustration. With paid versions of dating apps, you can see who liked you, you can undo your swipes, and you feel like you have more control over your dating life.

Pretty clever of the creators, who are actually tapping into our impatient nature and the fact that no app is really free anymore. Of course, you can listen to music on Spotify or watch videos on YouTube, but those platforms also don't make free usage any more pleasant with their loud and lengthy ads.

Still, experts believe that dating apps will become a lot less popular in the near future. After ten years of swiping, everyone is a bit fed up with it and people are more eager than ever to meet a potential love in the wild. The fact that you really have to leave your house for that might be a bitter pill for us introverted millennials, but hey, at least it's free.

Source: RTL News