> Tinder may terminate your account at any time without notice if it believes that you have violated this Agreement. Upon such termination, you will not be entitled to any refund for purchases.
> For residents of the Republic of Korea, except in the case [...], we will without delay notify you of the reason for taking the relevant step.
They openly say in advance that they'll ban users who they think violated their terms, regardless of whether they actually did, keep their money, and never tell them why, except in South Korea where they already know that crap doesn't fly. It's only a matter of time till that gets thrown out by more courts in more countries. Until then, it seems foolish to give them any money.
I'm not single and haven't been fora long time, but my understanding is that if you're single you can't really opt out of these apps, practically speaking. Even the norms around dating, picking people up in bars, etc. are changing because of these apps, so it's harder to find people in the real world. Not impossible, obviously, but getting banned from Tinder is kind of a big deal. (Also all these apps are owned by the same company, I think it's the Match Group.)
No offense, but bullshit. I've personally never once in my life used a single dating app and have met plenty of dates and love interests the old fashioned way, by interacting with them in the real world after random encounters (bars, events etc) or through circles of friends. Most of the people I know met their own love interests in the same way. I don't live in some backward country with little app use either. What a sad existence it would be to have something as fundamental as one's romantic life depend on a shitty, arbitrary and parasitic data collecting app that feels it has the right to treat its users like cash cattle with no recourse for any unfair ToS decision it makes. Grotesque.
If over 50% of people (and growing) say their relationship started on OLD [...]
I just skimmed the article, but it seems to say that even among the youngest age group only 48% have used dating apps and only 17% were in resulting relationship.
> If over 50% of people (and growing) say their relationship started on OLD, it's easy to say you're limiting your options by not participating
A does not in any way imply B. I strongly doubt that a non-negligible number of OLD users restrict themselves to using only OLD and automatically reject in-person advances. OP's "options" are still the same as before: all the singles in his physical meatspace.
> I strongly doubt that a non-negligible number of OLD users restrict themselves to using only OLD and automatically reject in-person advances. OP's "options" are still the same as before: all the singles in his physical meatspace.
You're assuming that a non-trivial number of people who use OLD aren't exclusive to OLD. Who's taking issue with that?
OTOH, saying that one's set of available dates is unchanged by foregoing OLD is deeply flawed. You even mention "physical meatspace" which OLD directly overcomes.
While I'm not a big fan of Tinder, monetizing romantic/sexual interest is nothing new. In fact, it's historically been the norm rather than the exception. The "Monetization & Defenestration" approach may not have been done through a shitty app, but a shitty date can you get kicked out of a bar, a concert, a restaurant, a nightclub, etc. for no reason and with no recourse for your money back even if you've done nothing wrong. I don't say this to justify these acts, but to acknowledge that they exist. While I hope OP fights the charges, $20 is a small sum to lose in comparison to a $200 concert ticket.
You'd be surprised with what's perceived as unaffordable for many "poor" college students and early-career professionals, many of whom are helped by student loan money and the Bank of Mom & Dad. In my experience, bad financial decisions in the pursuit of lust isn't one of them.
> my understanding is that if you're single you can't really opt out of these apps, practically speaking.
This is definitely not true.
> Even the norms around dating, picking people up in bars, etc. are changing because of these apps
This is true.
> so it's harder to find people in the real world.
This is sort of true.
By not using a dating app, a single person is relegating themselves to how things were pre-app. Some of those pre-app options are less common now, other new ways are more common.
The apps widened the dating door for certain people, specifically for people who are not particularly keen on getting out and meeting people (probably quite a few folks like that on HN) as well as people who are looking to get married asap[1]. That said, for people who get out and do things, meeting people to date is not difficult at all. Getting banned from Tinder for those folks is, at worst, a loss of a time filler activity (swiping).
I will also add that, of the apps, tinder might be one of the worst in terms of quality match ups.
[1] Apps are also good for highly desirable dates since their pool goes from big to biggest, but those folks aren’t really the topic here since they aren’t short on access to dates with or without an app.
Dating exclusively by apps might be reality for the younger US populations.
There was a thread on Reddit a few months ago where people were asking bad places for men to approach women. It was basically
Work
School
Gym
Church
Any place you go for hobby
Public transport
Shops
Bars
Anywhere outside at night
Parks
The consensus was basically the women on this Reddit thread don't want men approaching them in any way whatsoever that isnt a dating app. All alternative s were creepy. Now Reddit is mostly young and American, so who knows.
Sure. It widened the options for most people. Excellent!
That said, as the post I originally responded to suggested, I don’t think that getting banned from Tinder or any dating app in particular is a “big deal”. Maybe a minor inconvenience for most people, but it’s not like someone who gets banned from Tinder is doomed to a life without dates.
To save someone a click, so there is a study indicating 40% of couples “met online” (so via Twitter, IG, HN, Reddit, gaming, WhatsApp groups, etc., not necessarily dating apps); and then a study specifically about online dating apps where most participants were recruited online (in addition to the usual selection bias) so I didn’t bother checking results. Both are US-centric.
To reiterate, the first paper does not specifically pertain to dating apps, and the methodology of the second article is flawed (you want to know whether people meet online, so you ask people of whom >50% you found online, great technique)—so it might save someone who cares about that kind of stuff a click (a few clicks actually, since the methodology is buried in a separate article). If you don’t fall into that category, feel free to move along.
And I don’t know the author of the second article personally, but if I did of course I would point out an issue with their data.
It's an EXPLICIT footnote! See "Note; Here [is the report's] metholodgy."
> Methodology of the second article is flawed (you want to know whether people meet online, so you ask people online, great technique)
The methodology goes into statistical techniques to control for biases (e.g. language, gender identity, sampling method, etc.) See Methodology > Weighting about what they did with their ~5k responses.
1st click to go to the article, ctrl+f to find methodology, 2nd click to go to methodology. See 6000+ people recruited via web. The rest seem to amount to fewer than that. Am I the one being difficult?
if you're in north America, take heart that its not your fault! The American dating market is absolute garbage.
I've been traveling around the world the last few years and have had no problems finding casual hookups and longer term relationships. I'm currently dating a beautiful Colombiana. I would have thought she was out of my league if I was still living in the US.
People can't handle truth and I'd rather not be downvoted to oblivion.
Suffice to say, the american dating market is heavily geared towards attractive white men over 6 ft tall. They better also be a millionaire if you're in the bay area.
I'd suggest traveling like I have to southeast Asia, Europe and latin America for extended periods of time and see for yourself.
> Suffice to say, the american dating market is heavily geared towards attractive white men over 6 ft tall. They better also be a millionaire if you're in the bay area.
haha thats probably very true. I'd say don't give up!. travel as well, it'll enrich your life and make your more interesting to that special someone when you finally meet her. I wouldn't be surprised if you meet her in your travels.
What you're actually saying is that you are unable to compete in the American dating market, and so you're moving to other less competitive dating markets where you might be more highly valued. Obviously since this is HN we can't consider the female perspective, but if we consider the female perspective, the American dating market is probably pretty good because it offers a great number of attractive white men over 6 ft tall.
It's not specific to the USA, in France the situation is the same, most of the young women want the 'alpha male' so if you're not one, you have to wait until you're older..
It made being young much less pleasant than it ought to be, plus it means that we were a bit old when we had children..
That’s interesting. I wonder how much that applies to South Asians though. I think most of the dating advice in these threads is tailored towards white people who have different experiences from other POC.
I am south asian (srilankan american) so my advice is comming from the perspective of a person of color.
The best places for dating for a south asian male would be southeast asia, turkey and latin america. White guys definitely have an advantage when going after women that specifically want a foreigner. We're able to get the ones that would otherwise prefer to date within their own country.
I had some success in europe but it was hit or miss. I'd say it was a pretty neutral experience, I felt like the deck wasn't stacked for or against me on average. latin america on the other hand was where I had my best prospects.
In my experience, latinas in colombia love the way we look. If I asked 10 women on a date, I'd easily get at least 8 to say yes and show up while white foreigners I met in medellin would frequently complain that colombians were flakey and prone to cancel at the last minuite. The exact kind of behavior I'd get from white women in america. These days I have one that I absolutely adore so I'm off the dating market but every day I'm shocked that I have her because living in america drove into my head that someone as smart and beautiful as her was completely out of my league..
From my experience (being a lesbian myself), I found my fiancé on a discord server, and most of our friends also found their partners either through LGBT bars, LGBT online communities, or through art communities, tumblr, deviantart, etc ^^
Yeah, there are some unique wrinkles for me. I do like Discord a lot, actually. (I used to spend a lot of time on IRC so...) Most of the things I like, the Discords tend to skew pretty young for my dating comfort, since one issue I have is women who want therapists/mothers instead of a partner.
The other is that I work in politics plus have a politically-diverse family and so I would need a partner who is comfortable being around and loving people who disagree with them politically. Many LGBT people in queer nerd spaces like Tumblr, fandom spaces, art spaces, etc. prefer to live in a political filter bubble (I'm not judging if it's for mental health reasons; I think people have the right to associate with whomever they want), and that's not compatible with my life direction or values.
Being a statistical minority within a statistical minority is exhausting sometimes. I'm super happy you and your fiancee found each other, though! I hope you have a wonderful wedding and many happy years together.
And no LGBT bars in my area. I am NOT a big city person. I gave it the good old college try. I tried multiple countries and coasts, even, but nope. I'm a small city person. I like my hometown. It's dope and the cost of living is low.
> my understanding is that if you're single you can't really opt out of these apps
I understand why so many people believe this. But pro tip: if you want to opt out of dating apps, the key is to learn the skill of asking for what you want.
Ask the cute person at the coffee shop if you can have their number. Ask the person who's number you got out for a date. Ask the person you're on a date with if they want to kiss, etc. There is an art to successfully asking for things, and you have to get comfortable with people sometimes saying no, but the key really is that simple: just ask!
It's actually easier in real life to get a date with someone you find interesting, because you're not limited by who the algorithm decides to show your profile to, you're only limited by your willingness to ask.
Yeah. I'm off the "market" for 15+ years, but I really worry when I read about normal-seeming 20 year olds (or even younger) who met their partners on Tinder. It's something that's going to affect young people whether they take part in it themselves or not. Ruthless markets in relationships probably aren't going to make them happy.
I don’t think that is correct. I’m in London and have an American girlfriend. We met and got together the good old fashioned way. Getting pissed at a pub together.
Picking up dates in real life is not only still completely doable, but probably easier these days due to the sheer lack of competition from men who just have no idea how to do it.
My thoughts exactly. It’s like some of these people have never gone out on weekends or even had a chat with a woman randomly at the gym, supermarket, at cafe, out for a walk. What’s the problem? Just say hi and be normal. If she doesn’t seem interested, smile and move on!
if [Tinder] *believes* that you have violated this Agreement
Belief and 'thinking' are funny things. They imply human judgement was involved in the process. Instead what most people seem to be complaining about are the egregious use of heuristics to do large scale account maintenance without retaining staff (humans) to make judgements on the particulars of each case.
Until AIs win person-hood, there is no 'thinking' involved in this process. But I wonder if there is any case history on challenging the terminology used to describe these situations.
I feel that these systems should be using something more akin to applitools, which flags discrepancies between real and expected, and then a human rejects or accepts the report on a line item basis. You can still screw up and click yes when you meant no, but at least you have a chance at getting a human involved before doing anything dire.
I would definitely try to file a charge back with my bank, they sometimes exercise their own discretion on egregious cases like this and might be worth a shot.
In this case it's probably billed through the relevant app store, so you'd be starting a fight with either Google or Apple there, which could end up going even more badly than the interaction with Tinder did.
With Paypal and Herz it was quite easy for me: i filed a request, Herz didn't answer, I elevated to paypal to make the decision, Herz didn't care to answer and I got back my money. I guess it's the dame for Tinder, they don't care enough to manually review the chargebacks.
Contacting Apple would likely lead to a refund. No need to go to the trouble of doing a chargeback. This is one of the reasons developers don't like Apple's IAP policies: developers have no control over whether Apple decides to give a refund (or not).
"Take their money and run" is one of those standard operating practices in big tech that I think obviously needs legislation to curb. Once you start looking, you see it everywhere; whether its movies on iTunes, books on Kindle, or costumes in Fortnite. If you break their ToS, they're allowed to cancel your account, without recourse, and take away all the content you purchased. Its especially egregious in gaming, where a false accusation of cheating can cause your account to disappear; and because there's a "guilty until proven guilty" stigma against cheating, by-and-large gaming company support teams will not help. They'll auto-ban accounts, hardware signatures, even IP addresses.
Content providers should have the right to cease service to customers who don't abide by their terms. I don't feel that's unreasonable. But, consumers need recourse for the monetary investment. I'd strongly support a law worded something like: Digital service providers who sell transactional content & goods must either (1) offer the goods in an exportable, unencumbered, similarly accessible & functional format, or (2) at the time of service-provider initiated account termination, for any reason, reimburse the user for the full cost of goods purchased.
Many companies would argue: "we don't have the money anymore, we had to pay rights holders." I'd respond, that sounds like a You problem, and maybe you should consider clause (1). "The rights holders won't go for it"; again, that's a You problem. Work it out, or lose money; that's what consumer protection laws are for. They're not to protect your revenue streams.
Some gaming companies would be especially hurt by this, because of the prevalence of blank-check anticheat enforcement and their general inability to meet clause (1) due to the latest Fortnite cosmetic not really being "equally functional" outside the context of Fortnite. Well, I'd first respond: Your reliance on unjust business operating practices is a You problem. But more critically: maybe this will be the kick in the butt these companies need to invest more heavily into more accurate & functional anti-cheat, better customer support, and even new innovative revenue models. I've long felt that gaming has underutilized subscription services, and preyed too heavily on "free to play, pay $100 for the cool stuff later". Battle passes are kind of like a subscription service, and if the terms & expectations of the purchase are rephrased to be more service-like, rather than transactional-like, its reasonable to me that those should escape the law.
The best argument against a law like this is: consumers can, of course, break a company's terms at any time they wish. Most choose not to. But if they wanted to, the purchases with a content provider become something like a bank account, which they can utilize as they wish for as long as they wish, then get a full refund. Response: First, I think this should drive companies to clause (1). There's an out; you just need to work with the rights holders and accept that piracy will happen whether or not you try to control it. Second, again I think it comes back to mixing metaphors; Fortnite sells Goods, but they're only functional within the context of the Fortnite Service. Maybe they should sell the Service, and include the Goods. Third, this is a gap that insurance feels well-suited to help cover. Fourth, I think this would drive more companies to better KYC, so if anyone pulls this, at least they can only pull it once. That's not a bad thing.
The point should be to align what customers expect with what providers sell. If Netflix cancels your account, it sucks; but you don't feel slighted. It was a service; you understood that if you stopped paying, the service goes away. In comparison, the goods Apple sells (Apps, Movies, Books, etc) feel a lot more like going to the DVD isle in Best Buy; and its not ok that companies are allowed to slight customers like they do.
What you don't seem to realize here is that various app stores, etc almost never sell you any content. They sell you a temporary revokable right to access content. It's like a movie theater ticket, with an added bonus of ushers being paranoid assholes that could kick you out any moment without a reason. You don't own the movie, you can just watch it, if you're lucky. If you think that service isn't worth the price - tell them that, loudly, and use other options. But as long as millions of people are ok with it, they're not going to change - they have no reason to. If people treat temporary right to peek at the goods as goods being sold to them - why not enjoy it?
Really? When I buy a steam game, the big green button says “purchase”, not “receive a temporarily revocable right to access”.
It’s the digital age. My digital items are my possessions. This dichotomy in your head between the “real” and the “digital” doesn’t exist for the younger generation. There are few alternatives to these large tech companies. As I’ve gotten older I’ve wisened up and I buy DRM-free digital goods where possible (because of people who think like you, that big corporations need to be protected from the little people and not the other way around)… but before I got wise, I built up quite a large steam, Apple Books, and Kindle library (all of which call what we are doing “purchasing”… heads they win tails we lose).
The big green button lies. They are trying to bend the language to mean things that it legally doesn't mean. Just as they call unauthorized distribution of content "piracy" or "theft" (it's neither), they call a temporary revokable permission to access their content "purchase". And if you click that button, you agree with it knowingly. When it bites you in the nether regions, they'll remind you that was exactly what you paid the money for. Nobody forced you to pay money for that, you did it voluntarily. You are the one that gave them all the money to build this system.
I understand that you may value digital goods. I have some I value too. You just need to understand that just as with physical goods, even more with digital ones - if you don't control it, you haven't bought it. If somebody could just come and take your car, any time for any reason, you haven't bought a car. If somebody can just come and take your game anytime for any reason - you haven't bought a game. You bought a ticket to play it, maybe, but that's wholly other business.
I understand this well enough to at least keep offline backups of my paid content libraries (because I’m older and can afford the expense). Yeah, because of DRM it may be troublesome to access the content if my account was banned… but it gives me more ground to stand on (with our current unjust laws, both in court and in the court of public opinion) if I only claim that the content I already downloaded should still be accessible.
Your car analogy is interesting… If your car was paid off but got repossessed later because you said something nasty about the dealership on a forum, that would be a gross miscarriage of justice, even if they buried a clause deep in their sale terms granting themselves such an unconscionable right.
"It’s the digital age. My digital items are my possessions. This dichotomy in your head between the “real” and the “digital” doesn’t exist for the younger generation."
That's a weird way to put it. It may not exist "for" someone, but as you seem to acknowledge, it exists "for" numerous corporations and legal systems which even those someones are subject to. I thought this was the primary purpose of NFTs. An NFT physically cannot be revoked without the permission (coerced or otherwise) of the holder, or a fundamental problem in encryption.
And just so other people don't get confused by this pretty misleading hyperbole:
" The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. "
No judge is going to weigh what the "buy" button omits over what the EULA actually states. If anyone has an example of a digital content service with an EULA that DOESN'T contain this kind of verbiage I would be fascinated to see it.
> No judge is going to weigh what the "buy" button omits over what the EULA actually states.
Right, but that's my point (as the original poster). 100%, a judge should say "terms are terms, company is in the right"; we need new laws to protect consumers. By and large, consumers don't understand how digital is different; that it isn't ownership (in fact, arguably, consumers don't even understand that when they buy a bluray, that also isn't ownership in a legal sense; but it is ownership in common parlance). Whether these service providers would still see such success, if they did, is an unknown quantity; they probably would, but it can't be known. What is known is that consumers are (rarely) being shafted, with no recourse, because they agreed to something they didn't understand; it doesn't occur to most people that Apple even has the power to ban accounts, and take all their content with it.
Counter-argument: "Well, people should read the EULAs and understand it". Oof. First: the EULA may say "we have the right to revoke access" but that means nothing without the context of how, why, and how often it happens. These companies have not demonstrated even the BASIC DECENCY to EXPLAIN THEMSELVES when they ban users, let alone publish reasonable information about how often it happens. The statements in the EULA are useless without this context, because it enables savvy consumers to compare their statements with their own risk profile to make informed decisions. But, second: arguing this point is basically saying "dumb people deserve to be preyed on by international gigacorporations". Most people don't understand what this language means; in many cases, it seems to be written specifically so it can't be understood without a law degree.
Counter-argument: "Account termination & content revocation is rare, so whatever." Well, this point defeats itself, but think about it this way: If its so rare, then why not protect consumers? Companies will oppose it, of course, but they're arguing from the ground that its so rare that enforcement of this law wouldn't hurt them. If they hurt consumers, it'll hurt them. If they don't, it won't.
The narrative is getting twisted here; its not that consumers should have "irrevocable ownership" over a digital good you buy on, for example, Steam. Well, the NFT crowd would say you should, but let's ignore them. The assertion is: there should be fair and equitable recourse for when a service provider decides to revoke your access to the service which distributes the content you purchased. That recourse would ideally be met by simply unshackling the content from the service provider; the ability to play Steam games without being connected to Steam, for example. However, short of that, reimbursement is fair. It would absolutely hurt companies in this day and age of "terminate accounts for any reason, sometimes no reason, whatever the system decides" but THAT'S THE POINT. Companies only speak money. The point is to make termination hurt them, so they're forced to think more critically about how & why they terminate.
It doesn't matter if you receive a license and not ownership of a physical good or copyright, it still comes down to contract law. If the company you are buying the license from revokes it, and doesn't uphold their side of the contract you can sue them for breach of contract. A contract term that says they can revoke the license at any time for no reason, without refund is unconscionable and unenforceable. Basically they need to show a judge that you acted maliciously or otherwise violated the contract, or they need to provide a refund.
Contract law allows very wide variety of contracts, and Apple/Google/whatevs have enough expensive lawyers to write the contract that means "you have rights to whatever we allow you and we can revoke it any time we want without any recourse to you". As for the judge - the economics of going to the judge - which would cost you four figures just to start, five to six if you want any real results - is not exactly in your favor. They have lawyers on retainer, you have a day job which pays way less than any single one of those lawyers costs.
Just because they are a big company doesn't mean everything they do is legal. The legal system exists exactly to stop this kind of behavior. You can go to small claims for under $100 out of pocket, and you generally get these fees reimbursed if you win. In many cases just filing a lawsuit is enough to get them to settle and provide a refund, because they would spend more money sending someone to court(and probably lose anyways).
What part do you see as bullshit? Theater tickets and premium video channels like HBO are long-standing examples of the model. There are some services that act more like purchases, with Amazon video being a big example. But it seems to me that the vast majority of video and music content today is being sold on the access model, not the purchase model.
As someone with an enormous personal paid content library, I absolutely agree legislation is needed here.
Also randomized lootboxes should be subject to gambling laws, or at least regulated such that you can’t get duplicates or something reasonable like that.
On further thought, banning duplicates is just begging for trouble. It's a loophole you can drive a truck through. Just append a random throwaway property to every item and bam, "unique".
So yeah, regulate it as gambling. Don't let them advertise to minors. Don't allow them to knowingly let minors participate.
Considering Tinder rather explicitly checks your location to find people around you? I'd assume it wouldn't work, and might even lead to getting banned faster.
> Tinder may terminate your account at any time without notice if it believes that you have violated this Agreement. Upon such termination, you will not be entitled to any refund for purchases.
> For residents of the Republic of Korea, except in the case [...], we will without delay notify you of the reason for taking the relevant step.
They openly say in advance that they'll ban users who they think violated their terms, regardless of whether they actually did, keep their money, and never tell them why, except in South Korea where they already know that crap doesn't fly. It's only a matter of time till that gets thrown out by more courts in more countries. Until then, it seems foolish to give them any money.