Grindr trials premium $500 per month plan to become 'AI-first' app

[bambax]

> app that helps you connect with less effort and makes every conversation count

What makes things count is most often precisely the effort spent on them.

[ra]

I guess you're not the target market

[torginus]

this is like when companies go we take your privacy extremely seriously, now hand over your personal data that we should have no business accessing

[e1ghtSpace]

"Powered by gAI™"

I wonder if it would be worth creating an app that just sends you on dates using AI. Like, you don't even get to look at the other person's profile. Then afterwards you would report to the app whether you would go on another date with the person you just went out with or not.

[suzzer99]

Or just have your AI and their AI go on a date and report back how it went.

[hleszek]

Isn't that a Black Mirror episode?

[rich_sasha]

To be honest, sadly, I think you're onto something.

I can imagine the AI agents chatting to each other, figuring out what you like. I can see the chain of thought going "I can't say XYZ is lazy and rough, instead I'll say he saves his energy for what really matters, and lives to the full".

So many apps are just image attractiveness scoring plus some superficial conversation with pleasantries, which are both things AI do well at.

[cultofmetatron]

For $500 a month...

1. you can hire a personal trainer and get shredded

2. you can hire a nutritionist and eat healthier food

3. you can take up an expensive hobby that makes you a more interesting person

4. you can take a online course and learn a skill to increase your income.

Any of the above will increase your chances of attracting someone vs whatever timesink this is.

[pgsandstrom]

You might not fully grasp what Grindr is all about...

[ghtaylor]

Think what you want, but trademarking "gAI" is quite the flex

[xg15]

Also EDGE...

The whole thing could be a decent April's fool setup. A pity its February.

[manugo4]

Google invented it first. g.ai

[RupertSalt]

How do you pronounce that?

I suppose, either way, they win!

[Deukhoofd]

Apps that are focused on human connection sound to me like they're the absolute worst target for going 'AI-first'

[maininformer]

Grindr would be exempt by that token then

[ladidahh]

This has to be the most effective ad campaign they have done, I have seen some variation of this story on every platform I use. I don't think the brand has a lot of goodwill, but my awareness has gone through the roof due to this AI push

[rsynnott]

I'd argue that they don't need an ad campaign, tbh. Everyone already knows it exists; in regions where it's popular it's generally due to the lack of a decent local competitor. As you say, no-one really _likes_ Grindr.

[thomond]

Why would they even need an genAI? Grindr isn't even a dating site, it's a hookup site. A few if statements would do it.

[seydor]

It's like paying streetwalkers, but Grindr is their pimp. One could make the argument that they re taking advantage pf them

[embedding-shape]

Is this argument specific to Grindr or you just dislike any dating app?

FWIW I'd personally think most dating apps are taking advantage of people one way or another.

[RajT88]

> gAI

I cannot speak to the app or this service tier, but this company has some great pun writers. A+

[mbix77]

Why has the world not made an open-source zero trust dating app? It's such a basic need it seems for people, but the current app landscape is filled with scams, dark patterns, selling your data, trying to keep you locked in,...

[woooooo]

I'm guessing it gets overrun by spam, scams and porn bots even faster if its a low budget community thing.

[Almondsetat]

If I'm going out with someone the last thing I'd want is zero trust. In fact, I'd want the platform to thoroughly confirm everyone's identity

[stevekemp]

Back in the day I used livejournal and for a couple of years in a row I setup a matchmaking site that paired users up.

You'd login to my site and see a list of all the blogs you followed, then you could nominate five of them as people you were interested in.

If they did the same, you'd both get a notification.

It was a cute system and because it was restricted to selecting only from people you already followed it was nice and local. The code was released at the time, but has now become lost in the winds.

I could almost imagine setting it up again for instagram, facebook, or similar, but .. getting users would be hard I imagine, and I'm sure the companies would try to sue or prohibit it.

[embedding-shape]

Haven't seen any "zero trust" dating apps but there are plenty of free ones (some operating with a "donations" model, like duolicious). How do you envision a zero trust dating app to work in practice?

[ben_w]

> Why has the world not made an open-source zero trust dating app?

What would that even mean?

Not the open source part, what is a "zero trust dating app"?

Given what we see in other primates, abusive spouses almost certainly predate anatomically modern humans, while gold diggers will have likely existed from the moment we abstracted money in the sense of "rare shiny rock that is a token of power to be spent in the future".

[christkv]

lol wut. What exactly is the AI doing for 500 USD a month?

New AI features include recaps of previous conversations with other users, daily personalised profile recommendations and profile insights to help users identify who they are more likely to be compatible with.

so basically bullshit?

how thirsty do you have to be do pay for this?

[bondarchuk]

Sortition, you get to date with other people who also have 500 bucks to spare. Any features you get are just window dressing.

[rsynnott]

Another gay hookup app surveyed its user base on this a while back. Spoiler, user base is lukewarm at best on the ol' magic robots, unlikely to pay $500/month for them: https://www.romeo.com/en/blog/ai_and_gay_dating/

Minor caveat is that Romeo is mostly only big in Europe, and Europe _does_ tend a bit more AI-sceptical than everywhere else. But, still, not looking great.

[dqv]

Ok y'all wrap it up, it's a bubble.

I can definitely see portions of the userbase paying $500/month to use AI to screen out "fats and fems" tho

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Grindr is well past enshittified. I do wish them luck selling ai to all 5 of their users though.

[falloutx]

Grindr is next Google. Sometimes when I need to search something, I dont even open google or chatGPT, i just type into the DMs of someone and they refuse to answer.

[gib444]

Grindr is trash. It's mostly full of desperate incompatible people (i.e. same sexual position, mostly passives), open couples who just want dopamine hits and other time-wasters. Good luck with offering a $500 sub!

You'd actually be better off spending $500/mo on an escort or two. Surely they've realised at that price point, that's a serious competitor

[kotaKat]

Five hundred bucks gets you into a lot of bathhouses a month.

[falloutx]

This is actually a genius level move from Grindr. Anthropic/OpenAI can only dream of the stable userbase like this. Few years ago I even suggested they should add actual brainstorming and prototyping features like Framer for bros to discuss their business ideas. Dopamine rush of grindr notification into my AI chats would literally be insane levels of productivity.

[rsynnott]

> Few years ago I even suggested they should add actual brainstorming and prototyping features like Framer for bros to discuss their business ideas.

It appears that you have a productivity fetish. Fortunately, there's already a hookup app for people with that particular kink; it's called LinkedIn.