I've enjoyed Grindr for many year but in the last month or so it is becoming increasingly unusuable for a gay man looking to meet other men.
The app is getting overrun with fake profiles, using AI generated photos purporting to be Transwomen. I've also seen some profiles purporting to be Cis women. The latter raises a serious question about what Grindr is - inclusivity is one thing, opening it up to all comers is quite another. Inclusivity taken to it ultimate conclusion just results in invisibility of those who Grindr started out trying to serve.
My other question for you is about Grindr's monetisation strategy. I have noticed adverse changes to the offering for non-subscribers. First it was removal of the ability to block profiles on the grid; this became "hide" and meant that the number of profiles visible decreased. Then there was the change to age filtering. Initially age could be filtered in yearly increments, then it was 3-yearly increments and now it is 5. And with this latest change, filtering for age reduces the number of profiles in the grid.
Now putting together my two questions - is Grindr deliberately tolerating the fake profiles so that they crowd out the grid available to non-subscribers and deliberately preventing users from blocking such profiles to stop them circumventing this monetisation strategy?
Are my suspicions well founded or am I being a conspiracy theorist?