Wait, do people actually use Facebook Dating?

When we gather around the proverbial fire and exchange our online dating war stories, we usually talk about the usual suspects: Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Grindr, and sometimes more specialized apps like Lex. But since Facebook Dating launched in 2019, I’m not sure I’ve heard a story that started there: I know more people who met on Facebook meme groups than on the actual Facebook Dating product.

Turns out my anecdotal data may be wrong, because people actually use Facebook Dating! Meta shared user metrics for the first time on Monday, revealing that Facebook Dating has 21.5 million daily active users (DAU) across 52 countries.

Facebook Dating is a feature within Facebook, rather than a standalone app, and Facebook places its dating product front and center in the app’s main bottom navigation bar. (Even if your relationship status isn’t single, Facebook Dating remains top of mind.)

However, what is most surprising is how Facebook Dating seems to be gaining popularity among young people. The platform has 1.77 million users between the ages of 18 and 29 in the United States, which is still not on par with the “usual suspects,” but it’s getting close. Application analysis company Sensor tower estimated that as of this summer in the US, Tinder had 7.3 million active users across all age groups; Hinge had 4.4 million; Bumble had 3.6 million; and Grindr had 2.2 million.

Facebook has publicly addressed the fact that it struggles to keep Gen Z and young millennials on the platform, however, the company said last year that daily conversations on Facebook Dating in the 18- to 29-year-old demographic increased 24%.

The best feature of Facebook Dating is not something you actively do, but rather, it is what Facebook Dating No do. Unlike Hinge, you don’t have to pay to “unlock” your most desired matches or purchase other premium features that supposedly get you closer to finding “the one.”

Hinge premiered its “Featured” in December 2020, which has become a symbol of everything wrong with dating apps. Hinge’s algorithm finds the people it thinks you’ll be most interested in and then places them in their own elite tab of the app. The only way to swipe right on these people is to give them a “rose,” which users get for free once a week, unless you buy more roses for $4 each. Even if you buy roses, your maybe-future husband will know you used a gorgeous rose on it, which is a little embarrassing. So, like a true star-crossed lovers situation, some users have come up with increasingly complex schemes to trick the Hinge algorithm into releasing these people. “pink prison”.

In comparison, Facebook Dating’s free model seems pretty good. It’s not like Mark Zuckerberg is a benevolent Silicon Valley cupid: Meta is already making money off of you by relentlessly collecting your data, so he doesn’t need you to buy roses. But as users become increasingly annoyed with their usual app rotation, Facebook Dating may no longer seem so embarrassing.