Attractive economics: Dating apps make great business models

1/19/23 7:00PM

Highly motivated swipers

‍Dating giant Match Group is bumping up its most-expensive subscription level on dating app Hinge to $60 a month, or $720 a year. That price-point nearly doubles the current highest membership tier of $35 a month, as the company seeks “highly motivated daters” that are hoping to increase their chances of finding the one.

The motto for popular dating app Hinge, which Match Group classifies as one of its emerging brands, is that it's “designed to be deleted”. Although that might not feel like a sound business model, it's one that's actually remarkably profitable. In its most recent full year, Match Group made nearly $3bn in revenue, eking out a margin of nearly 30% despite high sales & marketing expenses.

With roots tracing back to Match.com in the 1990s, Match Group was officially formed after holding company IAC decided to bundle all of its dating businesses in 2009. Since then, the conglomerate has been on a buying spree, acquiring multiple dating brands, though Tinder remains Match Group's crown jewel. In 2021, Tinder swipers coughed up nearly $1.7bn to the app, outperforming all of the company's other 45+ brands combined, which includes Match.com, Hinge, OkCupid and PlentyOfFish. Surprisingly, unlike so many other online enterprises, just 2% of Match's revenue came from advertising, with the vast majority coming directly from paying users.

The attractive economics of a dating app, despite the pitfalls and safety issues associated with running one, have seen hundreds of competitors enter the market, with an increasing number of niche options for love-seekers. From apps that offer exclusive dating pools with celebrities to ones that help find other singles with the same food allergies, these days there's an app for everyone, and a premium paid option for serious swipers.

Chris Stokel-Walker

Bot bias

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Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

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Britain announces social media ban for under-16s starting early 2027

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Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5