Hey there,

Welcome to One.

You can probably tell already that this isn’t a typical dating app.

Frankly, the last thing we want is to be like them.

We’ve written you this note to explain why.

If you’d rather be swiping, that’s totally fine. We get it! Swiping is addictive.

But this probably isn’t the app for you. You can download Tinder here.

Tinder isn’t really a dating app, though, is it? It’s not even a hookup app anymore. It’s a hot-or-not app.

It’s a game for sorting people into two piles, and then collecting a stack of cards of people who put you in their hot pile. It’s about validation and judgment, not connection.

Bumble’s pretty similar, but it was at least built on the idea that women should have power over how conversations start. That was the company’s foundational principle, anyway…

They abandoned that principle in 2026.

And then, of course, there’s Hinge, the app that’s always telling us how it’s “designed to be deleted.”

It’s a beautiful phrase… but there’s a problem with it, and it’s one every Hinge user discovers sooner or later. The problem is that it can’t be true.

Why not? Because every couple that meets on Hinge costs the app two customers. Love is bad for business.

Hinge isn’t designed to be deleted. It’s designed to sell subscriptions. It’s designed to sell roses. It’s designed to sell boosts.

And if you’re someone who believes you would never pay for Hinge… well, just think about that for a second.

If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.

What Hinge is selling is access to you.

That’s why the apps feel so gross. That’s why they’re so toxic. It’s all deliberate, all designed to maximise shareholder value.

They want you to feel that there’s infinite choice, that you’re on an infinite carousel, that there are always more options.

They want you addicted.

They want the app to feel like a poker machine.

They want some of their users to feel worthless, like they’ll never meet anyone unless they pay for more likes. And they want other users to feel so inundated that they have to pay for filters just to meet the right person.

The anxiety, the exhaustion, the flattening of human beings… it’s all necessary to their business model.

If you connect on a dating app, you might fall in love. And the apps will lose money.

That’s why we built One. A different business model is possible, and it’s a lot less toxic.

One does something radical. It asks users to pay, once, at the beginning… and never pay again.

That way, we have no reason to keep you swiping.

We can put your most compatible matches at the top of your feed. We can match you on your values.

We can build a nontoxic dating app.

If that sounds like something you want to be a part of, you can join us on the App Store or Google Play.

We’re just getting started, so it might be a little quiet at first. We hope you’ll join us in building something new.

— the team at One.