Yeah, I considered some dark motives from the match group to make people more incentivized to try getting a match from buying premium but from you hear the old cliche of "I bought premium and it didn't make a difference" often enough to believe that isn't really their end goal to make matching needlessly hard if you don't pay. People who do well if they paid are likely going to do well anyway and so on.
I agree it's gotta be the messaging aspect where they want people focused on matching with others they'll be incentivized to chat with. Which I agree was the most frustrating part of it all. I'd get a bunch of matches but most would never respond and I too would never respond to a bunch of others. In fact, I probably unmatched a good half of the women I matched with because I wouldn't really give them much scrutiny.
I never used bumble, but hearing about the matches expiring if you don't contact them sounds both horrible and a brilliant solution at the same time.
The woman I'm currently with, have been living together over 2 years now, we met on tinder. It was ideal. Within a few messages we'd agreed to meet for a drink the following night. Showed up to find she was very unphotogenic and was enormously surprised. I don't think I could stop talking about how this was literally the first time the woman wasn't significantly uglier than in the profile and not just that, but significantly more attractive than I'd imagined. Remember kids, this is why I should always be silent in front of woman. Fortunately, she put up with me. Not many option for a 5'9" woman in Asia. At 6'2" I'm the shortest guy she's ever dated, something she was sure to remind me of whenever I'd poke fun at her for something