Kieran Smith

Tinder was one of the first apps to break onto the scene, but with other apps coming on, many users have decided that if they are to find that special person, they're more likely to do it on one of Tinder's competitors.

Just to contextualize things a little bit, Tinder is by far the largest dating app in the Western world.

It has over 50 million monthly active users, according to figures from Sensor Tower.

However, it has declined since the pandemic.

It had over 65 million monthly active users in 2021, but since then has been on a pretty downhill slope and has lost ground to rivals such as Bumble and Hinge.

Well, why is that?

It

It's pretty simple.

Tinder was one of the first apps to break onto the scene, and it was largely the only option if you were looking to online date, particularly at the start of the last decade.

But with other apps coming onto the scene and new innovative features being launched elsewhere, many users have decided that if they are to find that special person, they're more likely to do it on one of Tinder's competitors.

So what does Raskoff say went wrong for Tinder?

Yeah, it was interesting when I was speaking to Raskov.

I think it's firstly important to contextualize that he's been in the role now for about 14 months.

He was appointed in late February 2025.

So he's come in with a new vision for not only Match Group, but also Tinder.

And he said to me that quite clearly the problem with Tinder had been it didn't innovate enough.

It was first onto the scene.

It had a bit of a monopoly.

And that allowed it to get complacent, he said.

Its left-right swipe feature contributed to a kind of gamified offering.