Grindr - Gay Dating & Chat 17+

Hello,
I would like to share my experience for the goodness of Grindr since I like the app and have made great friends on there. Unfortunately, with the new updates happening my in the last year my experience has gradually been deteriorating.
1) Before I could upload a photo to my album from the already added photos to my Grindr gallery, now this option was removed so I should go to my phone gallery instead and search through all my personal photos, which takes much longer and I find rather inconvenient.
2) The way that the profiles appear is also more inconvenient than before. Sometimes it’s hard to swipe up to the profile information since the photos are taking a big part of the screen and instead swiping up to lead to the profile information it switches to the next uploaded profile picture.
3) And other smaller changes which make the user experience less smooth and intuitive.

I appreciate your hard work to bring us a great experience on the app but I would like to stress on the fact that NEW is not always BETTER, especially when it’s taking already EXISTING FEATURES AWAY.

heb zoveel hoofd gekregen door deze app

Grindr has been out for a number of years now: as trailblazers of geo-location based social networking; you would think they would use their market advantage to provide the best possible user experience while providing also some sort of sustainable business model to entice and keep subscription users.

Instead, the app trades on a number of dark design patterns that unfortunately reflect the highly enticing, addictive yet disconnected nature of urban sexuality in gay men: the ability to engage in targets with the least effort possible (“saved phrases”); the ease that which one chooses to reveal and hide themselves (“opening and closing albums”); bright colours that encourage a hypersaturated palette of men and possibilities that are no more enticing than the next. The only reward and gratification is one that is instant. While I cannot blame and app’s design for the problems we experience around intimacy and connection in our culture, I can’t help to think that it is optimised to encourage and reinforce these sorts of norms: one of instant gratification, and a general lack of care and commitment in the slightest.

But of course, every user has the right to engage with men on this app in a way that they see fit. But there are other problems: the subscription model is horribly expensive and way overpriced, bordering on almost predatory: and the free version is saturated with one of the most invasive and lengthy advertisements I’ve seen on any social networking platform. The app, despite its market advantage, years of development and I would imagine a healthy position in the market — is incredibly buggy, poorly optimised and drains more battery on my device than most 3D games. Often I would experience screen freezes, or messages not loading unless I have a ton of bandwidth. Ironically, the intrusive ads work flawlessly. Every time.

Grindr has improved over the years, and I do applaud their authentic market campaigns around sexual health for instance. But will we ever experience a Kinder Grindr? I wouldn’t be holding my breath, but the app and its user experience is clearly optimised towards exploiting a culture of instant gratification, disconnection, “more men, more options”, and a plain cash grab at that one as well.