The swipe has lost its appeal. Millions of people who once scrolled through profiles every evening have stopped. They deleted the apps, let subscriptions lapse, and started looking elsewhere. The numbers confirm what many suspected: dating apps are bleeding users, and the industry has no quick fix.
Bumble reported that paying users on its flagship app fell 11% to 2.5 million in the second quarter of 2025. Revenue dropped 7.6% year over year to $201.4 million. Tinder, which once dominated the category, saw paying users decline 5% year on year to about 14.1 million in the same period. Downloads of Tinder have fallen by a third since 2014. Match Group’s stock price collapsed from over $160 per share to around $30 in late 2024, erasing tens of billions in market value.
UK data shows the retreat in plain terms. Tinder lost 594,000 users. Bumble lost 368,000. Hinge dropped by 131,000. A 2024 Ofcom report recorded a 16% decline in UK users across these platforms.
The Burnout Problem
A 2024 Forbes Health survey found that 78% of respondents who had recently used a dating app reported feeling burned out. That same survey broke down the reasons. 40% said they could not find a good connection with someone else. 27% cited rejection. 24% pointed to repetitive conversations while chatting with multiple matches. 22% blamed the endless swiping. 21% said the total time spent on the apps wore them down.
These complaints are not new, but the scale of dissatisfaction has reached a point where users are acting on their frustrations. A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that 51% of American women reported negative outcomes on dating apps. Half of women currently on these platforms rate their time on them as somewhat or very negative, according to Pew Research.
Relationship Types Outside the App Model
Some users have moved toward arrangements that fall outside mainstream platforms altogether. Sugar babies, older partners, and other unconventional relationship types rarely fit the swipe-based format of apps like Tinder or Bumble. These connections often form through personal networks, niche sites, or social media channels where intent is stated upfront.
The decline in app usage reflects a broader rejection of one-size-fits-all matchmaking. People seeking specific relationship dynamics find that general-purpose platforms fail to accommodate their preferences, pushing them toward alternatives that allow for clearer communication about expectations from the start.
Gen Z Opts Out
Younger users are not replacing the ones who leave. A 2023 Statista survey found that daters aged 30 to 49, mostly millennials, make up 61% of dating app users in the United States. Gen Z accounts for only 26%. A Kinsey Institute study from spring 2024 found that only 22% of Gen Z and millennials were using apps as their primary approach to dating. Nearly 80% of college students skip dating apps entirely, according to a 2023 study.
The math is simple. If the youngest adult demographic refuses to adopt the product, the user base will continue to shrink as older users age out or give up.
Out of 37 straight men surveyed for one report, eight of them, all Gen Z, were using Instagram instead of dating apps. One 25-year-old man put it plainly: Instagram is the biggest dating app on the planet.
Apps That Are Growing
Not every platform is struggling. Match Group’s CEO Spencer Rascoff told investors that Hinge is crushing it. Gen Z makes up more than 50% of Hinge’s users. The app markets itself as designed to be deleted, appealing to people who want relationships rather than perpetual swiping.
Feeld achieved 841,000 downloads in the first quarter of 2025, its highest number to date, according to Statista. The app has seen an 89% increase in Gen Z users joining in the past year.
Grindr serves the LGBTQ+ community and reports exceptional engagement, with users averaging nearly an hour on the app daily. In 2024, users sent more than 130 billion chats and more than 9.5 billion taps. The platform continues expanding monthly active users and revenues through features like Right Now, Albums, Roam, and an AI Wingman.
The Move to In-Person Events
Companies have started selling matchmaking services to people tired of apps. Lox Club, Ambyr Club, and We Met IRL host in-person events where singles can speed date and mingle. Experts call this intentional dating and predict it will grow through 2025.
The platforms themselves have noticed. Bumble IRL launched in 2022 with events centered on fitness, food, music, and charity. Hinge started a fund to sponsor singles events. Tinder is attempting to pivot toward long-term relationships, which polls show Gen Z prefers over casual encounters.
These moves acknowledge that years of screen-based interactions left people wanting something different. Meeting in person removes the ambiguity of text exchanges and the fatigue of managing multiple conversations at once.
What the Numbers Say About the Future
The global online dating market is projected to reach $13.4 billion by 2030, up from approximately $9.3 billion in 2024, growing at 6.3% annually. Over 300 million people still use dating apps worldwide, with about 20 million paying for premium features.
But only 10% of people in committed relationships met their partner on an app or site. That statistic, more than any revenue figure or download count, explains why so many users have walked away. The apps remain popular in a technical sense, yet they fail to deliver what most users actually want: a relationship that lasts.
The industry faces a straightforward problem. It built products optimized for engagement rather than outcomes. Users noticed. They stopped paying for subscriptions that led nowhere, deleted profiles that collected matches but not dates, and started looking for partners the way people did before the swipe existed.
