Dating platforms and social technologies are built around the chase rather than the consummation of intimacy, emotional resonance, or the recognition of social worth. Research on dating app use has shown that the systems rarely deliver enduring outcomes, but rather incentivise continual pursuit, endless swiping, and repetition of cycles of hope and disappointment (Bonilla-Zorita, Griffiths […]
Dating apps don’t sell love. They sell the chase. Their business model only works if most people fail to find lasting relationships. A happy couple deletes the app and disappears from the revenue stream. That means personal, social, even biological success—stable intimacy, family, belonging—represents commercial failure. So the platforms are designed to keep you searching. […]
Technology offers the illusion of choice, but this abundance of options rarely constitutes a solution. A true solution integrates context, consequence, and continuity; it reshapes the system from which the problem arose. An option, by contrast, is a terminus disguised as autonomy—predefined, delimited, and often contingent upon the very infrastructure that created the tension in […]
We’ve normalized dissatisfaction. Not by accident—by design. The architecture of digital dating apps isn’t built to resolve loneliness; it’s built to circulate it. What’s being optimized isn’t human connection but engagement metrics. Every swipe, match, ghost, or dopamine ping feeds a system that grows stronger the more its users stay unfulfilled. At scale, systems don’t […]
Daedelus Kite 