Grindr, with its 15 million monthly active users, is drowning in ads while imposing expensive upsells on users. (In February, as part of its “GAI” overhaul, the company announced a new premium monthly membership tier for $500.) Sniffy’s was beloved by cruisers until the seismic reaction in April to Match Group’s $100 million investment, which raised concerns that another quirky spot might be absorbed into a larger dating conglomerate.
As public backlash against popular queer apps grows, a group of tech entrepreneurs are struggling to meet demand by doubling down on privacy-conscious, community-driven alternatives.
Callum Bowden, who posts under the internet personality @donjackoghue, launched MeetMarket in March. Currently available only as a web app, MeetMarket includes all the core features of your typical hookup app – a customizable profile, a grid of nearby users – with one big difference. It was built on a decentralized identity system, meaning MeetMarket does not store users’ emails, passwords, or personal information. Users store everything on their device, giving them full control and ownership over their data and how it is shared. Messages on the platform are end-to-end encrypted, and Bowden says it will always be ad-free, even for non-paying members. (A monthly subscription costs €12, or $13.99.)
“Decentralization and data privacy matter a lot to gay people in general, and especially in a hostile legal environment or in the US, where you don’t really know which digital platforms actually have your best interests in mind,” says the 34-year-old PhD student studying sociology of technology and organization in Berlin.
Within the first 48 hours of MeetMarket’s launch on March 24, more than 12,000 people had signed up, and nearly 60,000 have used it since then. According to Bowden, the app averages 5,000 visitors per week, although there isn’t much concurrent activity in similar cities. “It’s become much more social than just making instant connections.” But random encounters still happen, he says. “Midwest bottom jockeys are gaining ground on the market,” one user said on X.
Bowden did not anticipate that public sentiment on Sniffies would turn sour just weeks after its launch. Still, its timing couldn’t have been more fortuitous. “When Sniffies announced their investment from Match Group, I thought, how are they stoking my fire?” he asks. “This is exactly the model that venture capital leads to. That’s why these economic models for technology are so bad, because they basically force the gentrification of a digital platform.” Sniffies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A self-described “utopian conspirator,” Bowden is co-founder of the Trust, a nonprofit that works as a kind of incubator for prototyping ideas “as a critique of technology and the status quo.” With MeetMarket, he wanted to create an app that gave users more agency without cheapening their experience.
Sometimes it may seem like Big Dating wants people to believe it’s the only answer to fixing their romantic problems — Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd recently told Axios that niche apps don’t have much longevity — but the opposite is proving to be equally true, as people are looking for more exclusivity and intention in their online dating experience.
“Gay men have tribes, subcultures, aesthetics and different ways they want to be seen,” says Justin Finnegan, a 35-year-old software engineer in Toronto.
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