Earlier today, I saw a popup in Bumble that I’ve seen many times before: “You’re all out of likes. Like limits encourage thoughtful swiping. More likes are coming soon, or you can upgrade to get more now.” Below that prompt, a button suggests to “Get more likes now”. As you might expect, that button takes you to a purchase page.
Usually, I’d just close the app at this point, because I know that many apps scam users like this. They let you sink just enough time in a behavior (like swiping or messaging) to get you invested, and then slam the door shut on you – unless you’re willing to pay and open that door back up.
But today, my ADHD had other plans. I found myself hyperfocused on two parts of the pitch:
“Like limits encourage thoughtful swiping.”
“…you can upgrade to get more now.”
“Wait…”, I heard myself saying out loud. “if like limits encourage thoughtful swiping, then why are they letting me buy more swipes?”
My stream of thought trickled, then torrented:
“How does Bumble define thoughtless?”
“Do they assume that my swipes have been thoughtless?”
“Do they care if men like me swipe thoughtlessly as long as we’re paying?”
“What is Bumble asking women?”
“What negative attributions do they monetize in women?”
“Does Bumble see a downside to calling men thoughtless?”
And then, finally:
“Why does this feel so… icky?”
While a short piece can’t tackle everything my shiny-object-oriented brain came up with, let’s engage the last question.
To answer you, Ian-from-60-minutes-ago, it feels icky because you became consciously aware of manipulation you’ve been subjected to but never saw before today.
It feels icky to realize that the prompt you saw is very well crafted, to exploit your feelings and behaviors.
It feels icky because it tries to extract money from you as a way to dissolve any frustration or cognitive dissonance Bumble induced in you to begin with.
It feels icky because it’s saying that if you’re out of swipes, then your swipes must have been thoughtless – yes, Bumble is gaslighting you.
It feels icky because the prompt’s own logic is inconsistent, but you didn’t see that, even though you knew the prompt was manipulative.
It feels icky because you wonder how else Bumble’s design actively manipulates you and other users while proudly proclaiming that it is ‘encouraging equality from the start’.
(No, seriously, it’s on their about page!)
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think anyone should be ‘shifting old-fashioned power dynamics’ by manipulating users. That doesn’t sound like equality – it sounds like abuse.
Time to see what Hinge is like, I think!
Notes:
1) There are some PR-friendly outs for Bumble here, but they don’t change anything about what I’ve said overall. For instance, they could say ‘we think free users are thoughtless, our data show paid users are much less thoughtless!’ – but that’s a distraction. In-context, the way the prompt is presented (to me? to men?) is really gross – and probably works all too well for their bottom line for them to care, tbh.
2) To whoever tuned that language: you’re using your powers for evil, stop it. What has Bumble done for you that’s so great that you’re okay being complicit in this kind of fuckery?
Intersection 9 