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.

Jon Keegan18h

Anthropic launches “Claude Design,” sending shares of Figma and Adobe down

Anthropic has been slowly and steadily gaining a leading share in the enterprise AI market by focusing on coding, spreadsheets, and other common productivity and workplace apps.

Now it’s going after design apps.

Today Anthropic launched Claude Design, a dedicated app powered by its latest model, Claude Opus 4.7, that lets users use text prompts to build website designs, user interface prototypes, presentations, and marketing materials.

Shares of Figma and Adobe sank on the news.

While Claude has previously had the ability to create designs and user interfaces, breaking it out into a dedicated app signals a major new piece of its enterprise strategy alongside its popular Claude Code product.

Introducing Claude Design by Anthropic Labs

Shares of Figma and Adobe sank on the news.

Rani Molla23h

Apple’s China iPhone shipments surged 20% in Q1 even as overall smartphone shipments fell

Apple’s iPhone shipments in China jumped 20% last quarter, even as the country’s overall smartphone market fell 4%, according to new data from Counterpoint Research. Rising memory costs have pushed prices higher across the industry, weighing on demand.

Apple appears poised to ride out the broader smartphone slump. Its strength at the less price-sensitive high end of the market and its unusual leverage over suppliers, which helps keep costs in check, give it an edge over rivals.

Greater China remains a critical region for Apple, making up about 18% of its total revenue in the fourth quarter. The company accounted for 19% of China’s smartphone market in the first quarter, up from 15% a year earlier, per Counterpoint.

Rani Molla4/16/26

Anthropic has surged past OpenAI in capturing business spending on generative-AI software

Last quarter, Anthropic attracted the lion’s share of trackable business spending on generative-AI software, according to new data from Ramp, a fintech company that provides corporate cards and expense management software for small firms and Fortune 500 companies alike.

The data showed that in the first quarter, Anthropic saw 37% of spending, its biggest share yet, versus 33% for OpenAI. Notably, the dataset doesn’t capture spending by Google or Microsoft.

OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, still leads in overall adoption at 81% of AI buyers, but Anthropic is catching up, at nearly 63% in March. Overall, more than half of Ramp’s customers currently pay for AI, up from just 18% two years ago.

Anthropic’s enterprise tools, including Claude Code and Cowork, have been making waves among the business class, sending its revenue soaring.

Anthropic’s revenue share is even higher among companies spending on AI for the first time.

“Anthropic has definitely been on a tear,” Ara Kharazian, Ramp’s economist, told Sherwood News. “Its increase in adoption rates has been driven by its ability to sell to less technical users and smaller contracts than it typically has.”

It’s notable that midway through the first quarter, Anthropic had a falling-out with one of its biggest customers, the US government, which near the end of February decided to shun Anthropic’s products and lean into working with OpenAI.

Jon Keegan

4/16/26

Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.7, with better coding, better vision, and occasional doom loops

The incremental update of Anthropic’s most capable public model includes steady improvements to coding and new ways to blow past your token budget.

Tunnel. Optical illusion. Abstract striped background. Vector illustration.

Jon Keegan4/16/26

Report: Google ditches its objection to defense work, pitches Gemini to Pentagon

In 2018, Google employees protested against the company’s tech being used for the US military’s Project Maven — a drone targeting program — reminding the company of its “don’t be evil” motto.

After the controversy, the company declined to renew the contract with the Pentagon, drawing a bright line between Big Tech and the national security establishment.

What a difference a few years makes.

Google is now actively working to get its Gemini AI model to be used in classified national security settings, according to a new report from The Information. Seeking a similar deal to the one OpenAI hashed out with the Pentagon, Google reportedly wants a contract that allows use of Gemini in classified work, but with a prohibition on mass domestic surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons.

But Google is playing catch-up in a major way. Amazon and Microsoft both have been widely used for classified defense work, and contractors are already experienced in working with their cloud systems, while Google’s services have never been used in classified work.

Google and Pentagon Discuss Classified AI Deal as Company Rebuilds Military Ties