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Meta's dating product, Facebook Dating, got a slew of new features last month and the team behind it believes it can help users who are struggling with dating app fatigue.
And before you ask, yes, real people are using it. I even set up an account to see it for myself.
Meta announced earlier this year that the dating product, which launched in 2019, had grown its user base by 20% year over year within the US and Canada. Among young adults, Meta also reported that daily conversations increased 24% year over year. Meta didn't disclose how many people are using it, however.
Meanwhile, dating incumbents like Match Group and Bumble have been grappling with users' diminishing stamina for online dating.
The biggest pitch Facebook Dating has going for it? It's free -- with no limits, no paywalls, and no recurring subscriptions.
"The point of Facebook dating was to be able to offer as much as we can for free because we can afford to do that," Shabnum Gulati, a product manager overseeing Facebook Dating's user-facing features, told Business Insider. "We don't really believe in monetizing love, frankly. We're trying to offer as many features as we can that are competitive with other apps for free."
While Facebook isn't directly monetizing love, the product does sit within its core app and could help drive people to engage with its other money-making features.
The Facebook Dating team, which sits under the Facebook org, has around 50 staffers, Gulati said. BI sat down with Gulati at one of Meta's offices in New York to get a walkthrough of the Facebook Dating experience.
A few features that Facebook offers for free that are paywalled on other dating apps -- either through subscriptions (like some Match Group apps) or pay-to-play apps (like Raya) -- include unlimited likes, the ability to revisit anyone you swiped left on, and sorting through the feed of matches by interests.
Here's a summary of Facebook's key dating features that it hopes will help it compete with Tinder, Bumble, and newer startups: