Let's monetize our great love: relationships in the 21st century
Tinder monetizes!
It is not a slogan, nor a particular accusation, but only the last news concerning what is the most famous - it seems to us - dating app. Tinder monetizes, we said, that is: the platform will introduce a virtual currency to allow users to buy greater visibility of their profile, consequently increasing the chances of meeting other people. The operation is quite simple, and Daniele Monaco recently told it in a piece for Wired: «The tool designed by the romantic appointments app to encourage the propensity of users to spend is a new virtual coin which will only be used within the application itself. The principle is simple: digital tokens can be acquired to the extent that users remain active on the platform or keep the profile updated, but can also be exchanged with real money ". A sort of economy internal to the app, therefore, which depends a lot on the frequency with which it is used and which allows a series of advanced functions, from Super Like, which allows you to make your interest known to the other person, to boost, which involves greater visibility of one's profile, in fact.
In itself, that Tinder starts to monetize it does not surprise much (who does not do it today?); Rather, the news brings a series of moral, or ethical implications, destined to make people discuss. Love, already offended by its technological counterpart - the dating app - is now totally distorted by its marketing. Put simply: by paying, you have more possibility to find the right person. Is the ethical dilemma easy to understand even for the most progressive: is it not better to look for love in a traditional way, like our fathers and fathers before even? Perhaps. Maybe not. In short, there is no answer - and there was also, we don't know it.The speech, however, is another, much more practical: Tinder begins to monetize because Tinder is used. And a lot too. During the Pandemic months, the platform has seen its users grow dramatically, and even now the figures do not seem to fall too much. The people looking for a partner, an adventure or even if only moved by curiosity become part of that digital system that is increasingly part of our daily lives. And to think that until a few years ago the dating sites - you will perhaps remember the much advertised Meetic - were nothing more than like the last hope of men and women already without hope.
Today things are different, even if not entirely. The popularity of the dating apps - of Tinder, of course, but also of services such as Grindr - has conducted the latter under an excellent light. In short, they enjoy a good reputation. But only if - and this is the knot - only if you use to have occasional relationships. Anyone of us has already heard the unnameable from some proud mouths proud TYPE TIPA. Who would then be the girl who came out with after the match On the app and with which, one thing pulls the other, something has been combined.
Well.
Less pride it is tried, however, when a serious relationship begins with the person known online. And it happens. More and more. Yet there is a certain concern to announce to friends and relatives (especially relatives) the non-place where you have known the other*. You are looking for a justification, or you gather and say something like: "Eh, on Tinder ... but I don't know how it happened!". We tend to get our hands on, to apologize to the other for finding love on a platform whose only acceptable use is that of occasional encounters. On the other hand, they are certainly not Cleamenti the whispering of certain people when they discover that their old* Amic* has started a relationship in that way. In short, why?
It seems - it seems - that we unconsciously give greater freedom, a wider progressiveness, to occasional sex than to the love relationship. This, despite the times we live and the battles we have fought, remains as inevitably anchored to the past. We do not want to say this, to disavow tradition in the name of progress at all costs, of course. Only, it seems appropriate to shake off this prejudice too. Love is love, in short, that it is found on Tinder or in the park, what matters is the relationship that is built together. The beginning of this, after all, is nothing more than a beautiful anecdote to remember every now and then with a smile. Without prejudice or stigmas of any kind.
Enrico Ponzio
