If you get a message from someone you never matched with on Tinder, it’s not a glitch — it’s part of the app’s expensive new subscription plan that it teased earlier this year, which allows “power users” to send unsolicited messages to non-matches for the small fee of $499 per month.
That landscape, in fact, is largely populated by apps owned by Tinder’s parent company: as Bloomberg notes, Match Group Inc. not only owns the popular swiping app, but also Match.com, OKCupid, Hinge, and The League.
Match Group CEO Bernard Kim referred to Tinder’s subscriptions as “low-hanging fruit” meant to compete with other, pricier services, though that was before this $6,000-per-year tier dropped.
In my experience (I’m a few years out of date with how the app works now, keep that in mind) it’s like 90% looks. You CAN build up a profile, but IIRC only the first sentence of it shows up on your picture. A person has to see your picture and that tagline, be curious enough to actually go to your profile before swiping, then read your profile if they’re going to use it to judge you on.
Most of the people I know who used tinder, myself included, didn’t really do that much. We just swiped based on looks, and if someone was borderline then we looked at the profile to make a decision. But that was pretty rare, most people it was a pretty clear yes/no based on looks.
The apps is designed to encourage that behavior. When I used it profiles were REALLY not being encouraged, IDK if that has changed (I would guess it hasn’t).
Is that wrong, though? Would you go on a date with someone you can’t stand looking in the face? There is no amount of profile that could make me swipe “yes” on a duckface, someone who clearly spends half their day at the gym, an over the top sport team’s fan, a photo of a cloud, or a close-up of some ass/tits.
Looks and context of a self-selected picture tell a lot about a person, and how they want to be seen.