The Big Business of Online Dating (Land of the Giants)

Today, Nayeema sits down with dating industry veteran Lakshmi Rengarajan and journalist Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz before we play you an episode of the podcast they host — Landof the Giants: Dating Games. In conversation, the three explore the business of online dating, the incentive apps have to keep users swiping and the power the people who run and build these dating services have in shaping our love lives.

Kara and Nayeema will be back on Monday with a fresh episode of On with Kara Swisher. Until then, find them on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema.

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Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, The League. If you’ve ever wondered why using these different dating apps feels similar, it may be because they’re all owned by Match Group, the company that helped start online dating in the 90s, and now owns two-thirds of the dating app market. Today, Match is a dating app conglomerate with millions of users and over 45 brands around the world. That’s billions of dollars worth of swipes and subscriptions. But does paying for what Match Group calls “superpowers” — things like Hinge’s ‘roses’ and Tinder’s ‘super likes’ — get users any closer to connecting with real-life people?

• Hosted by Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz (@sangeetaskurtz) and Lakshmi Rengarajan (@Shmi_So_Far)

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