Summary
Dating apps suck, primarily because of the chat.
All mainstream dating apps have the same core user flow:
Like profiles.
If they like you back, a match is created.
Chat in the app.
Date in person.
Users hate them because:
They are a waste of time. ~40 hours of chatting with ~20 matches convert into a single date.
This is exhausting, it leads to "dating app burnout".
Everyone gets ghosted. We did not evolve to have 10+ ongoing conversations at the same time. Answering chat messages is too much work, so users keep swiping instead.
Lots of users are not serious. They just enjoy collecting matches.
Even if a date is scheduled eventually, no-shows are common.
Subscription fees create misaligned incentives. While the model is broken, companies are not incentivised to fix it.