Bumble vs Tinder
One of the first things I learned at college was that it was important to social life to have a dating app, namely Tinder or Bumble. One of the biggest questions I had when starting this class was how I could apply network effects to my social circles and relationships. It follows that as an avid smartphone user I would sample both Bumble and Tinder to determine the best app from an INFO 2040 perspective. In my opinion (in addition to the UVA masters study I have linked) Tinder’s network effects are simply better than Bumble. To understand why, we have to look at the possible map of connected nodes that is Tinder and Bumble.
Let us consider each person on Tinder or Bumble as a node in a graph, and swiping their attempts to create paths to other “desirable” nodes. A weak connection would be a “match” ; that is, when both parties swiped “yes” on the other. To make this a strong connection they would have to talk for an unspecified amount of time.
Now that we know how these apps work in regards to networks, the mechanics of Bumble make it inferior to Tinder. Bumble was founded by a disgruntled former founder of Tinder as an alternative to the “toxic” culture surrounding Tinder. The main difference here is that the matches disappear after 24 hours if the female does not message the male. Men cannot send the first message, but they have 24 hours to answer the woman’s opening message or the match will disappear. The intentions behind this were good, but the problem is that it makes very few strong connections especially in Bumble’s demographic of mostly 18 – 25 year olds. The likelihood of the woman actually messaging first is low, especially within 24 hours. Therefore the chance that the initial connection will take place is lower than Tinder, making the network effects lower.
One final thing to consider is the fact that most matches on Tinder also go nowhere, but they keep the “weak” connection of the match. This means if either party wants to attempt to create a strong connection at any time, they can. That being said, Bumble matches that last more than 24 hours have a higher likelihood of becoming strong connections given that both parties have not only swiped on the other but also engaged in conversation.