Why Kindling · the map
Dear Match, We’ve come to kick your SAAS
Why the pool should be a commons.
First the problem, told with the public record: every figure has its source beside it, and we say no more than the sources do. Then the twelve things that change when the pool is shared, each tied to the spec and to a site in the library you can try.
The one page that names a company. The rest of this site, and every site in the library, makes the argument without names. Here we name Match Group, because the public record does, and we quote the record rather than describe it. Where a source reports allegations, we call them allegations.
A dating app is only as valuable as its pool.
- 2019
The value of the app is the pool, and the pool is local.
“The value of the app is directly correlated with the size of the potential partner pool.”
The same article explains why that favors whoever is biggest in each place: “Dating app networks, on the other hand, are largely localized. A Tinder user in New York gains no value from each additional user in Seattle.”
- 2016 data
One company held most of the market.
64%of the dating-app market, held by Match Group in 2016 app data
The article reports that “Match had 64% of the market share,” from a 2016 study of app data, and its table of market share by revenue puts Match Group at about 66.4%. These figures describe 2016, not today.
- Q2 2026
Fourteen brands, one company.
In its results for the second quarter of 2026, Match Group names its brands as Tinder, Hinge, Match, Meetic, OkCupid, Pairs, Plenty Of Fish, Azar, BLK, Chispa, The League, Upward, Salams and HER. It reported revenue of $853 million, down 1% from a year earlier, and 13.3 million payers.
Source Match Group, “Match Group Announces Second Quarter Results,” 2026
- Our reading
A new app starts empty.
If a pool’s value is its size, and size only counts nearby, then a new app opens with nothing to offer the first person who tries it. People stay where the people are, and nobody new gets a wedge in. That is not a story about one company’s choices. It is the shape of a market in which each app owns its own pool.
The operator is paid while you are still looking.
- Our framework
The product is the wait.
“Dating apps charge people for hope. The product is the wait, and the revenue depends on the wait continuing.”
That is our view, from Kindling’s framework essay, not a finding about any company. What follows is what others have alleged, and what was answered.
Source Kindling framework essay, version 0.3, April 2026 (our own view)
- 2019 to 2025
The FTC’s case, and its settlement.
In September 2019, the Federal Trade Commission sued Match Group. It alleged that Match.com used fake love-interest ads to get people to pay for subscriptions; that it promised a free six-month subscription to people who did not “meet someone special” without adequately disclosing the requirements; that it unfairly suspended the accounts of users who unsuccessfully disputed charges, keeping their money; and that it made canceling difficult.
On August 12, 2025, the FTC announced that Match Group agreed to pay $14 million and to permanently stop deceptive advertising, cancellation and billing practices, to resolve the FTC’s charges. It was settled by a stipulated order. The FTC describes its claims as allegations, and its announcement reports no admission by Match Group.
- 2024
A lawsuit, and the answer to it.
On February 14, 2024, six plaintiffs filed a proposed class action in a California district court. They allege that Tinder, Hinge and other Match Group apps are “dopamine-manipulating products that gamify romance and dating” and encourage “compulsive use,” and they accuse the company of using “dark patterns.” These are allegations.
Match Group called the lawsuit “ridiculous” and said it has “zero merit.” It said: “We actively strive to get people on dates every day and off our apps.”
- Our reading
The incentive runs against yours.
An operator paid by the month earns more while you are still looking than after you have found someone. We do not say any company acts on that. We say the incentive is there, and that a protocol can take it away: Kindling defines nothing to charge for between two people who want to meet (§1.3).
People are worn out.
- 2024
78% felt exhausted by dating apps, at least sometimes.
78%felt “emotionally, mentally or physically exhausted by dating apps” sometimes, often or always
A survey for Forbes Health, conducted by OnePoll from March 27 to April 1, 2024, asked 1,000 US adults who had used a dating app in the past year how often they felt “emotionally, mentally or physically exhausted by dating apps.” 78% said sometimes, often or always.
Source Forbes Health, survey on dating app fatigue, conducted by OnePoll, 2024
Friendship never got infrastructure.
- 2021
Fewer close friends than in 1990.
12%of US adults said they had no close friends in 2021, up from 3% in 1990
In a May 2021 survey of 2,019 US adults, the Survey Center on American Life found that 12% had no close friends, up from 3% in 1990, and that 13% had ten or more, down from 33%.
- 2023
The Surgeon General’s advisory.
20minutes a day spent with friends in person in 2020, down from 60 in 2003
The US Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, reports that “approximately half of U.S. adults report experiencing loneliness.” It says that lacking social connection “can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day,” and that time spent in person with friends fell from 60 minutes a day in 2003 to 20 in 2020.
Source Office of the US Surgeon General, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, 2023 (PDF)
- Our framework
Nobody built the plumbing.
“Friendship discovery has been worse. No one has built a category-defining product for it because friendship is hard to monetize the way dating is.”
Kindling is plumbing, and it works the same for a walking group as for a date. A Pool can be for friendship as easily as for anything else.
Source Kindling framework essay, version 0.3, April 2026 (our own view)
People already work around it, in public.
- Now
Date-me docs.
Some people publish a date-me doc: a page in their own words saying who they are and whom they hope to meet, kept wherever they like. There are public directories of them, such as dateme.directory. We link it only to show that the behavior exists. Kindling has no connection to it.
- Our framework
Lists kept by hand.
Our framework essay names more: shared documents of single friends, pages listing who is open to coffee, one-page sites that read like personal ads, group chats that double as introduction networks. What is missing is a way to search and connect across them without rebuilding the trap.
Source Kindling framework essay, version 0.3, April 2026 (our own view)
Therefore
Kindling makes the pool a commons.
Profiles stay on people’s own pages. Pools are open manifests anyone can host and any app can read, with each owner’s yes. A new app can open full on day one, people can leave without losing anyone, and the tricks stop paying. Here is what that changes.
The leading apps, feature by feature.
What Tinder, Bumble, OkCupid and Feeld sell or hide, in each company’s own help pages, and what Kindling’s four apps do instead when they are used for dating, one of the things they do. Every row names its source and its date. These are features the companies describe themselves; nothing here is an allegation.
- Jan 2026
Few people use them, and many worry.
6%of US adults are currently using an online dating site or app
In a survey of 2,012 US adults in January 2026, SSRS found that “6% are currently using an online dating site or app.” Women were more likely than men, 55% to 30%, to say meeting in person someone they met on a dating site or app is not too safe or not at all safe.
Source SSRS, “The Public and Online Dating 2026,” February 2, 2026
| Feature | The leading apps, in their own words | Kindling’s four apps, on dating |
|---|---|---|
| Seeing who liked you |
| |
| Paying to be seen first |
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| Undo |
| |
| A clock on a new connection |
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| How the order is decided |
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| Privacy as a paid extra |
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| Friends |
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| More than one person |
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The Kindling apps are invented examples, linked to their own pages. The companies’ features change; each row is as its source stood on the date shown.
Twelve shifts, in plain words.
Each one is a section of the specification you can read, and a site in the library where you can see it work. The sites are invented; the sections are real.
Shift 1: Pools are a commons, not a moat.
People and curators hold the network, not an app. A Pool is an open list that anyone can host, and any app can read a public one. The people in it are there because they said yes, and they stay findable whichever app anyone uses.
- In the spec
- §3 §3.5 §8
- Try it in
- Ada Quillon, Rain Check, Roomful, Second Tide Books, Seen Work, Wren’s List
Shift 2: A new app starts full.
A new app does not open to an empty room. On day one it can show you people from the Pools you already joined, and each of them still decides who may write to them.
- In the spec
- §3 §5 §7
- Try it in
- Drip Line, Familiar Faces, Midspan, Roomful, Slack Water
Shift 3: One room, many doors.
The same Pool can be read as a list, a map, a zine, an email digest or by an agent. Apps compete on how well they treat you, not on how hard they are to leave.
- In the spec
- §1.2
- Try it in
- One Pool, many doors, Ada Quillon, The Board at Port Ellery Free Library, The Circular, Drip Line, Familiar Faces, Rain Check, Roomful, Second Tide Books, Slack Water
Shift 4: Leaving costs nothing.
Your profile stays on your own page, and your photos are never copied. You are out of any Pool within 60 seconds, and the people you met were never the app’s to keep.
- In the spec
- §2 §5.3 §2.5
- Try it in
- One Pool, many doors, Ada Quillon, Midspan, Rain Check, Roomful, Seen Work
Shift 5: No money on the wait.
Nothing is charged at the connection layer, so nobody earns more while you are still looking. The v0.2 draft adds thanks after an introduction worked, only if you want to give them, and says that can never become a paywall.
- In the spec
- §1.3 and the v0.2 draft
- Try it in
- Correo Lento, Hearthhold, Late Supper, Seen Work
Shift 6: Tricks stop paying.
When you can leave without losing anyone, streaks, paywalled likes and fake urgency lose their leverage. Nobody can be added to a Pool silently, and who is asking is always shown, with how they are verified.
- In the spec
- §4.5 §5
- Try it in
- Ferry Room Players, Late Supper, Roomful
Shift 7: People, not a ranking.
There is no score to climb. Curators who know the scene decide whom to ask, and a vouch counts only inside the Pool where it was given.
- In the spec
- §4.4
- Try it in
- The Board at Port Ellery Free Library, Cape Tarrow Alumni, Drip Line, Hearthhold, Late Supper, Many Moons, Midspan, Scattered Light, Seen Work
Shift 8: Safety that travels.
The project publishes a public block list of known abusers, and anyone may publish another. Every conforming app can subscribe and filter, so a block does not stay behind in one app.
- In the spec
- §7.3
- Try it in
- The Circular, Drip Line, Ferry Room Players, Foul Weather Friends, Many Moons, Scattered Light
Shift 9: Every shape of relationship.
Friendship, dating, non-monogamy, platonic partners, chosen family. Each Pool says what it is for, in its charter and its intent tags, and chooses its own visibility, so you can be out in one Pool and private in another.
- In the spec
- §3.2 §2.4
- Try it in
- Cape Tarrow Alumni, Familiar Faces, Hearthhold, Many Moons, Midspan, Queer Harbor, Scattered Light
Shift 10: Nobody owns the directory.
Any domain can publish a well-known file listing its Pools, and anyone can run a registry. The project runs one, and the spec says it must never be the only way to find a Pool.
- In the spec
- §8 §10
- Try it in
- The Circular, Foul Weather Friends, Queer Harbor, Wren’s List
Shift 11: It outlives its makers.
If a curator goes quiet for 90 days, the Pool goes dormant and its active members can choose a new curator. If they don’t, it archives and stays readable. No company has to survive for your Pool to.
- In the spec
- §9
- Try it in
- The Board at Port Ellery Free Library, The Circular, Foul Weather Friends, Rain Check, Slack Water
Shift 12: Email is the floor.
Messages ride on structured email, so they need no new network and reach the inbox you already have. Richer transports may come later, and email stays as the fallback through v1.
- In the spec
- §6.1 §6.4
- Try it in
- Correo Lento, Foul Weather Friends
Every source on this page.
Where a source reports allegations, we call them allegations. Figures are given as the sources give them, with the year they describe. Kindling’s framework essay is our own view, and it is marked as ours wherever it is quoted.
- Gilbert, “Antitrust and Commitment Issues: Monopolization of the Dating App Industry,” NYU Law Review 94(4), 2019 (PDF)The pool effect, and the 2016 market share
- Match Group, “Match Group Announces Second Quarter Results,” 2026The brand list, revenue and payers
- Federal Trade Commission, “Match Group Agrees to Pay $14 Million, Permanently Stop Deceptive Advertising, Cancellation, and Billing Practices to Resolve FTC Charges,” August 12, 2025The FTC’s allegations and the settlement
- CBS News, “Tinder and Hinge dating apps are designed to addict users, lawsuit claims,” February 15, 2024The 2024 lawsuit’s allegations, and Match Group’s response
- Forbes Health, survey on dating app fatigue, conducted by OnePoll, 2024The 78% figure
- Survey Center on American Life, “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss,” 2021Close friends, 1990 and 2021
- Office of the US Surgeon General, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, 2023 (PDF)Loneliness, premature death and time with friends
- dateme.directory, a public directory of date-me docsThat date-me docs exist, in public
- Kindling framework essay, version 0.3, April 2026 (our own view)Every passage marked “Our framework”
- Tinder Help, “Likes,” updated October 28, 2025Tinder: who liked you
- Tinder Help, “Priority Likes,” updated September 1, 2026Tinder: likes seen first for Platinum
- Tinder Help, “Tinder Subscriptions,” updated August 10, 2026Tinder: what each tier includes
- Tinder Help, “Powering Tinder: The Method Behind Our Matching,” updated September 1, 2026Tinder: how the order is described
- Bumble Support, “Expired Matches,” updated August 10, 2026Bumble: the 72-hour clock and Extend
- Bumble Support, “Viewing Who’s Liked You,” updated July 16, 2026Bumble: who liked you
- Bumble Support, “BFF Mode Is Closing Down,” updated September 8, 2026Bumble: BFF Mode closing
- OkCupid Help, “How Does OkCupid Work?” guide, read September 28, 2026OkCupid: how the percentage is described
- OkCupid Help, “Interested In You,” read September 28, 2026OkCupid: who liked you
- OkCupid Help, “Non-Monogamy on OkCupid,” read September 28, 2026OkCupid: one person per profile
- Feeld Support, “Majestic Membership Explained,” updated April 16, 2026Feeld: what the paid membership includes
- Feeld press release on Constellation, June 20, 2024Feeld: linked partner profiles
- SSRS, “The Public and Online Dating 2026,” February 2, 2026How many use dating apps, and safety worries