Bumble was also started by a cofounder of Tinder and they've been attacked by Match Group, who illegally harvested their user information.
It's a monopoly. There's a reason all these apps became horribly expensive (at least if you want any real functionality at all.)
Just wanted to bring this seedy fact back into the spotlight, since hopefully dating will be a thing again this summer.
I hope these aren't famous last words, but I'm actually surprised that Plenty of Fish isn't as bad as I remembered. I've used pretty much all the major dating sites off and on over the last eight years, most recently trying Hinge. There was a time POF had the reputation of being a cesspool (and their shitty website didn't help).
But I've been back on there for 2 days, and so far it has been ok. I'd even hazard that the few mutual conversations I've had are more straightforward & pleasant than I've experienced recently on the other apps with the same pictures. I also get way more likes and compliments on my photos - which makes me wonder if I've been fishing in the wrong pond all this while (with OkCupid, etc). I don't think Plentyoffish could have gotten better over time - dating apps rarely get better. Could it be that other apps got worse so that POF is no longer uniquely bad? There was definitely a time when POF was described as the place for stalkers and murderers.
Granted, I have not yet met anyone from POF so maybe this question is premature. But I'm curious what could be going on here. Am I just the right type for *gasp* POF men?
Made an account couple days ago, bought the premium service, and then start getting spammed notifications about matches and messages, but when I check there is either nothing, or the profile I matched with gets deleted a little while later. A lot of these profiles seem to have similar content too, with a few weird details being the same and mostly having just 3 pictures.
I'm sure there are some real people on the site but this seems scummy as fuck to me. I'm 100% sure they're just spamming me with fake shit to keep me checking it.
What's everyone else's experience with that site?
Here's why this news is interesting to me. I've followed Markus Frind, the owner, since 2006 when he was blogging more (here - https://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/); when he posted his $901,733 Adsense check (here - https://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/07/small-companies-google-adsense-is-the-future/); when he was regularly posting on webmaster forums; and when he was attending Affiliate Summit Conferences to network.
He started Plenty of Fish from his small Vancouver apartment back in the day. He knew how to program, he loved creating websites, he had an idea for a simple business (basic dating site), he created it, researched his ass off about how to grow it, and did what any of us would do when launching a site.
He had no funding, not marketing or sales team... just himself and hard work for many years.
I've watched him creatively test things over the years like his own ad platform, different monetization (Neverblue affiliate offers), etc and one thing remained constant - he always worked his a*s off and always continued to focus on growing his site.
Today he gets $575mm in cash for his 12 years of hard work (plus all the money he made while operating the site). Really cool story.
Warning: Very Long Story:
This happened about a year and a half ago, I was 20, right after my long term girlfriend broke up with me. I was depressed and lonely and looking for attention any way I could. Out of pure boredom I downloaded the dating app called Plenty Of Fish, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Anyway, I was browsing through for quite a while and nothing really caught my attention right away. But then I came across this girl who was drop dead gorgeous. Definitely 10/10. I was thinking, “why the hell would she be using this shitty app to find guys when she could probably get whoever she wanted?” Anyway, I swiped right, or the equivalent, not thinking much of it. I didn’t expect her to reply at all. Almost immediately I got a response.
“Hey what’s up?? :)”
I didn’t really know what to say, as it was the first time I actually used a dating app. But after I did reply back I was quick to realize she was extremely outgoing. She loved to talk. I can’t remember our conversation but we chatted the whole night. I talked about myself and she talked about herself. She told me she lived in a different state, about 400 miles south of my own, I wasn’t surprised. A while later she gave me her phone number and we ended up continuing our meaningless conversation over text.
She stopped responding to me by late morning the next day. I was a bit disappointed but not surprised. I continued about my day like it never happened, not expecting her to text me back later that evening. She seemed different though. Like she wasn’t as talkative as before. It was late that night when she had an odd request. She asked me if she could send me nude photos of herself. I was totally taken aback. I was not prepared for that. Why would I turn that down though? A beautiful girl, willing and wanting to send me photos of her nice body. Of course I agreed. So she did. She sent me pictures of everything and I was happy and she was happy.
Then she asked me to send pictures of myself. Again, totally unexpected. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never sent photos of my manhood across mobile devices in my life. I mean, I didn’t want her to think I was self conscience, and I definitely didn’t want her to stop talking to me. I did the deed. I lowered my phone and snapped a photo of my erect wing-wang and hit SEND. Damn it I wish I hadn’t. I never got a text from her again.
A few days went by. I felt disgusting for what I did but I couldn’t take it back so I got over it and forgot about it
... keep reading on reddit ➡This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 68%. (I'm a bot)
> The investigation - a joint effort by ProPublica, BuzzFeed, and Columbia Journalism Investigations - popular free dating apps owned by Match Group do not have clear policies or screening practices that would prevent accused or convicted sex offenders from using the products.
> Match Group does require background checks for its premium services, like Match.com, but doesn't offer anything similar for the free apps.
> The statement did say that Match Group didn't collect enough data on its free users to conduct meaningful background checks.
> We do not tolerate sex offenders on our site and the implication that we know about such offenders on our site and don't fight to keep them off is as outrageous as it is false.
> Customers who agree to the terms promise they haven't committed "a felony or indictable offense, a sex crime, or any crime involving violence." They must also agree that they aren't "Required to register as a sex offender with any state, federal or local sex offender registry."
> Tinder and OkCupid each have similar stories of convicted rapists or other sex offenders using the platform as a means to connect with, and later harm, women.
Summary Source | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Match^#1 sex^#2 date^#3 users^#4 offender^#5
Post found in /r/worldnews, /r/NotClickBaitNews and /r/NotClickBaitNews.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot h
... keep reading on reddit ➡
Hackers on the notorious HackForums.net released 300,000 Grindr, 40,000 OKCupid, 5,000 Adam4Adam, 2,000 PlentyOfFish, 11,850 Facebook, 625 Twitter login names and passwords of LGBT users on hackforums on Monday night at around 9pm London time GMT.
The dumps were made available on the dark web for a lot of money and are now being sold for high prices.
Representatives of the dating sites were unavailable for comment.
So, my account got banned, again, thanks to this rule:
You may also be deleted if you accumulate a high number of blocks. Users who are deleted may not signup to the service again.
Source:
https://www.pof.com/HelpCenter/helpcenter_faq.aspx
Well that's just fucking fantastic, are the owners really that fucking thick?, women use blocking as an ignore button, don't like the look of the guy or his message was not interesting to you?, block the guy, I can't imagine how many men's accounts vanish thanks to this, and then you get i.p banned so not only do you have to get a new email address to recreate your well written profile, you have to cycle out your i.p, just to get back on the site.
Well guess what?, this time you pissed off someone with a little technical competence, your system is easily abused and I have figured out how to block someone without receiving a message, so here's what I am going to do, just to fuck with the website.
I am going to make, let's say....20 accounts, all with separate i.p addresses and details and go on a goddamned blocking spree and get as many local women banned as I can by using your own shit system against you, how's that going to feel?, banning people from the site should rely on a reporting system where a human looks at the messages sent and decides whether they were toxic enough to be banned.
If I send 30 women a message saying "Hello" and 20 of them block me because they don't like messages that say hello it shouldn't be a fucking ban, so here's a reckoning, if anyone wants to learn how to do this pm me and I will detail it, your stupid website deserves to suffer, and so in turn the women who use the block button as an ignore button, getting men banned, should be removed from the site, I am so done with recreating my profile after jumping through hoops to avoid an i.p ban after making new email addresses, time for some payback.
Fuck YOU pof.com!
