Today, dating apps have become one of the most
common ways for couples to meet.
They've grown rapidly in popularity since first
getting traction in the 2000s. And by 2017, 39% of
straight couples were meeting online.
And over half of the LGBTQ community said they had used
the apps. So it's no surprise that making friends
online is also becoming the norm.
But not all online friends become in-person
relationships. While a majority of teens surveyed
in 2015 said they'd made friends online, usually
through social media or video games, only 20% ever
met those online friends in person.
Now, that's starting to change, as some dating apps
hope to broaden their business by becoming
friendship apps, too.
I feel like in recent years people are moving a lot.
And if you go to a new city, especially during
COVID, it's very hard to meet people, very hard.
And like right now I feel like there's less shame
because people are like, 'How else are you going to
meet people?'
Now, many Gen Zers are making friends through apps
like Bumble BFF and Meetup and actually meeting with
them in real life.
When I moved to New York almost a year ago, I knew
essentially no one.
The way I saw it, I could either swallow my pride and
download an app to make friends or wait to make
friends in a more so called natural way.
I was doing it when it was still embarrassing, you
know, to admit that you were on these dating apps.
And so it's going to be the same thing with friendships.
And after the peak of the COVID pandemic, these apps
became more popular.
Connections were lost and people moved away, leaving
many to try friendship apps or join Facebook groups.
When you think about the changes that the pandemic
brought, the move to remote work, I think it's very
common for folks across all ages and life stages to say
that, 'Hey, I've grown, I've changed in the last few
years and I'm looking to rebuild community and
connection now.'
One survey last year found 15% of men say they have no
close friendships. That's more than the number of
women who reported no friendships and higher than
in 1990.
While technology is often blamed for driving a wedge
between us, could easy to use, apps like Bumble BFF
actually be a solution to this problem?
While it's now easier to communicate with nearly
everyone on Earth. Face-to-face interaction has
taken a hit. A 2022 study found that non face-to-face
interaction can help prevent the deterioration of
mental health, but they may not be sufficient for
maintaining physical health. That's something
that friendship apps are trying to help fix and make
money with in the process.
One of the biggest companies to get into the
friendship business is Bumble, where Beth Berger is
the VP and GM of BFF.
I think that the need for community and connection has
never been higher than it is today, and a lot of the
ways that humans have built relationships and come
together over the last decades have changed a lot.
Bumble BFF functions almost identically to the dating
app on a separate tab within the Bumble app, which
was launched in 2014 purely for dating, you create a
unique profile and swipe right on potential friends.
If you match your chat and hopefully meet up soon
after.
Bumble has certainly dominated as the number two
dating brand globally after Tinder, which is owned by
Match. They've done a really great job of
monetizing their user base, particularly in the United
States.
Whether friendship apps will become as monetizable as
dating apps remains to be seen.
But despite this, Bumble is still seeing significant
growth since the launch of BFF in 2016.
Berger said that by the end of 2021, Bumble saw about
15% of their users on BFF, up from about 10% the year
prior. With the online dating market valued at
$8.9 billion in 2021, there's no doubt tech has
become a huge player in the world of relationships.
Though the potential of tech dominating in the world
of platonic relationships is still up in the air.
We're born in relationships.
We need each other.
We thrive in relationships of all sorts romantic,
platonic parent relationships, child
relationships.
Despite the need for relationships of all types,
Bumble BFF hasn't been an overwhelming success
financially. The vast majority of bumble's revenue
comes from users paying for features on the dating app,
like being able to see everyone whose liked your
profile.
Bumble has talked about monetizing BFF and biz and
other relationship verticals that they see as
opportunities. Going forward next year, in 2023,
we have it contributing about one and one million
dollars out of over a total base next year of 1.06
billion, and only one million dollars that we
think will come from non dating.
Badoo is another dating app under the Bumble brand,
which also markets itself as a place to meet friends.
Other apps like Clock Out and Meetup put their own
spin on forging friendships online and are specifically
made for that purpose, which differentiates them
from giant dating apps.
They're geared towards connecting people with
similar interests like rock climbing or being a foodie
in New York.
Besides Bumble, big dating apps like Tinder and Hinge
are largely sticking to romance.
And Bumble BFF has a smaller user base than its dating
app. That may be tied to a sense of shame associated
with trying to make friends, especially by
paying for it.
The stigma has sort of been erased for online dating
because it's become more normal. I still think
there's a little bit of a stigma of paying to find
friends. I think dating will always probably be the
most monetizable use case and probably will always
represent the vast majority of their revenue.
But it is possible friend finding becomes kind of
secondary to that.
From my experience, using an app like Bumble BFF can be a
little odd because it feels eerily similar to using a
dating app. But I was successful in finding a
handful of friends that way, like Alex Kristiansen.
Much like a dating app, after we met and messaged
for a couple of days, we exchanged numbers and met at
a bar that's about halfway between us.
What was it about my profile that made you want to be
friends?
That's a good question.
I think you were looking kind of like a hipster.
I was trying to make a hipster friend.
That's really what it was.
I think I told you that you looked like a hipster.
Yeah, that kind of vibe.
You moved to Brooklyn, so you felt like you had to
have a hipster friend.
Definitely.
Right.
Anyways, at this point, it's hard for younger generations
to remember the time when dating apps were
embarrassing to use.
They've become completely mainstream, but using an app
to make friends is a newer concept that still carries a
certain stigma, like online dating once did.
Did you feel any shame about that.
Little bit for like a second?
And then I was like, You know, there's a lot of
potential here. I don't feel any shame.
I wasn't going to make that many friends if I just like,
went to the park or went to bars or like went to the
gym, etc..
And I was like, 'This is what people do to make
friends now.' And I did it.
While it may feel strange, in a way, it makes sense.
As dating norms have shifted to the internet,
friends were a fitting next move for social apps.
If you're on a dating app, you're trying to find
characteristics of someone you want to be in a
relationship with, or maybe just talk to you very
quickly. Right?
But you're looking for characteristics of what you
want. For like Bumble BFF you could say it's the same
thing. You're looking for characteristics that you
want in a friend.
While it does sometimes feel like you're hunting for
friends, it has proven successful. For people like
me, Alex and my fellow associate producer at CNBC,
Sydney Boyo.
It feels like you're shopping for friends, so you
kind of have that like initial, like guilt of just
like judging someone based on, you know, you're
literally just seeing like their picture.
And some people don't even, like, write like information
on their profile. It's just their picture.
So it's like, how do I judge someone off of this?
Like, I don't know if you would make a good friend
because I literally know nothing about you.
Yeah, I mean, people do that with the dating apps and I
guess it makes a little bit more sense there.
But for something like BFF it just, I don't know, like,
what are you what are you trying to gain from that
just by showing your pictures here?
But much like dating apps, it's not a perfect system.
I mean, it's definitely hit or miss.
Like, there are definitely a lot of people on Bumble
that you'll talk to and it just doesn't work out.
In moments of transition like a move new job or a
breakup, you might find yourself like me eating
alone in bed, endlessly scrolling through pet
adoption websites in New York City.
It really is the desire for deep connection with
friends. And so I'm not saying it's our
responsibility as a culture to find friends for
individual boys.
Obviously it's not.
But the point is, is as a culture, why is it that we
don't value friendships in the first place?
And lacking this deep connection could have
detrimental impacts.
Social isolation has been proven to increase the risk
of premature mortality from all causes and increase the
risk of developing dementia by 50%.
Young men in particular, are statistically more
likely to struggle with finding and maintaining a
community. One in four men under the age of 30 said
they have no close connections and only about
48% said they're satisfied with the amount of friends
they have, compared to 54% of women.
But apps like Bumble BFF could help.
70% of the men who said that they've looked online to
build friendship and community have successfully
done so.
As dating apps become friend apps, some hope they'll help
everyone with a disconnect that's been growing since
long before social media and video games could be
blamed.
It wasn't until about the 1940s and 50s.
It's basically post-World War Two.
Post World War Two we essentially created the
nuclear family.
So then it becomes focused on the romantic relationship
and the marriage as the focus of a good American
family. And all of a sudden you see friendships just
drop out of the equation.
It's a 20th century, 21st century phenomenon that we
have put all our emotional eggs into one basket, one
romantic basket, so that we think somehow we just need a
romantic partner in life.
I think that there has been no time in history where the
need for new tools to start, build and maintain
community have ever been as high as they are today.
The idea of social discovery and sort of expanding the
barriers of online dating beyond just sort of romantic
relationships to more just meeting people, finding
friends online, etc.
is something that both Match and Bumble are really
focused on.
So while in modern day America, it might seem like
technology is what's driving us apart, it could
actually be an answer for those struggling to connect
and an emerging market for dating apps to capitalize
on.