“I think the user pool on a lot of these apps has declined,” said Max Gomez, a 24-year-old communications professional. “Gen Z is just simply not using these [apps] as much anymore.”
This leaves “people with the false impression that we prioritize metrics over experience,” Rascoff wrote. “That needs to change.”
In the same letter, he called on employees to offer their “unvarnished feedback” on how to improve products for consumers.
“We know that listening to users isn’t enough—we need to move with urgency and increased accountability,” Rascoff wrote, adding Match Group would be “increasing expectations around in-office collaboration” to make changes happen faster.
This is especially important to Rascoff’s vision of developing new products for dating apps—and Tinder, specifically, because of its association with hookup culture.
“Tinder started over 10 years ago, and at the time, it was really innovative,” Rascoff told WSJ. “But the product has sort of stood still for quite a long time, and consumer social products like ours, you just can’t do that.”
One new product Tinder has already rolled out in about 15 countries, which will be a global feature by the end of the summer, lets users pair up with friends to encourage double dating.
“The high pressure kind of product offering of looking at a photo and judging it—that is cringy for a lot of Gen Z people,” Rascoff said.
The feature takes some of that pressure off of Gen Z users, he added. Users can merge their profiles with a friend, and that pair can then match with another pair on the app—say, two guys talking to two girls. Then those four people can start a group chat together and make plans to meet up in real life.
“This is the way Gen Z wants to connect,” Rascoff said. “They want to vibe their way through meeting people.”
“Many tens of 1000s of times a day that little speed bump that we introduced improves the way people behave,” Rascoff said. “We have work to do on our end. Society has work to do on their end. Together, we can help cure loneliness.”
