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Facebook Dating Is a Surprise Hit for the Social Network

Facebook Dating is mostly popular with people older than 30, but it has around 1.8 million users in the United States in their 20s and hundreds of thousands of young adults creating new profiles in the app each month

An image provided by Meta shows the company’s Facebook Dating feature. Facebook’s free dating service has 21 million users, more than the popular dating app Hinge, as the social network reinvents itself. (Image: New York Times)

For years, Alyssa Landguth, a 30-year-old from Washington state, used Facebook like most people do these days. She bought used furniture on Facebook Marketplace, the app’s version of an online garage sale, or commented on posts.

But after finalizing a divorce over the summer, a different feature has kept her coming back — Facebook Dating. It has become the only online dating service she uses, “cheaper than Christian Mingle and with more matches,” Landguth said.

Facebook Dating, which debuted in 2019, has become a surprise hit for the company. It lets people create a dating profile free in the app, where they can swipe and match with other eligible singles. It has more than 21 million daily users, quietly making it one of the most popular online dating services. Hinge, a leading dating app in the United States, has around 15 million users.

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“Underlying it all is that there are real people on Facebook,” Tom Alison, the head of Facebook, said in an interview. “You can see who they are, you can see how you’re connected to them, and if you have mutual friends, we make it easy to see where you have mutual interests.”

Facebook Dating’s popularity is a sign of how Facebook has been reinventing itself. Its main social feed has become less popular over time than younger apps like Instagram and TikTok. But along with Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Dating shows how an older social network can remain relevant.

Facebook Dating has grown as other dating apps have struggled. Users younger than 30 having conversations rose 7% year over year, the company said.

Facebook Dating is mostly popular with people older than 30, but it has around 1.8 million users in the United States in their 20s and hundreds of thousands of young adults creating new profiles in the app each month, the company said. It does not spend to market the service but recently added a Dating tab to the bottom of some users’ Facebook apps.

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Alison attributed some of Facebook Dating’s success to it being free and easy for users. The company makes money from advertising revenue when users spend time on the Facebook app generally, a much different incentive than an app like Hinge, which makes most of its money from subscriptions.

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