This is really what I’m hoping for. Threads has not launched well, Twitter is on the brink of collapse, Reddit is in the midst of enshittification, and Facebook is only used by old people.
Tiktok, Snap, and Insta are still absolutely huge, but there is a definite pick up in pace of people adopting the fediverse. There is hope.
Dating apps are toxic as it is, and the fact that most of them are basically days mining operations at this point makes it even worse (this also heavily impacts the overall ux). I have a friend who has worked for multiple dating app companies and it sounds awful.
I think an open source one that respects user privacy would be amazing, but honestly would likely be useless, as barely anyone would use it because people don’t really care about privacy, and select dating apps purely based on user volume.
In addition, and although this is gradually changing, tech and therefore tech-related interests such as data privacy and FOSS are still overwhelmingly dominated by cishet white men, so I can’t imagine such an app having even the most basic, binary requirements in terms of diversity.
I used it to self-medicate for my ADHD for years. It calmed down all the noise in my head and allowed me to have one train of thought at a time. It also made me high, which was nice. I’m the end, it became a crutch for dealing with the hard aspects of life, and fucked with my brain chemistry a lot. I ended up a paranoid wreck, developed severe anxiety and stopped. Now I enjoy it occasionally but if I smoke too much it makes me feel depressed for days afterwards.
Why?
I’ll admit it’s anecdotal, but it is absolutely my experience having worked in tech for 15 years.
Maybe “dominated” is an extreme word, but I would put money on “over-represented”.