Grindr is broken.
You know it. They know it. It is an engagement trap optimized for one thing: making you pay or look at an ad.
With 15 million active users monthly, the app is suffocating under its own monetization. Remember February? The “gAI” update. A premium subscription tier launched for $500. Just like that. Meanwhile, bots run wild and actual human connection becomes a scarce resource.
Then there was Sniffies. Loved by the cruising set until April. Then Match Group dumped $100 million into it. Suddenly, everyone worried their queer space was just another acquisition for the conglomerate machine.
Backlash is rising. So entrepreneurs are stepping up.
They aren’t trying to build the next Grindr. They want to dethrone it by ignoring its entire business model. Privacy first. Community owned. No venture capital overlords.
Meeting on Neutral Ground
MeetMarket launched in March. No native app yet—just a web version. It looks like the hookup apps you know. Grid view. Nearby people. Profiles.
But under the hood? Totally different.
Calum Bowden—the guy behind it, online as @donjackoghue—built it on decentralized identity. He doesn’t store your email. No passwords on the server. No personal info saved by the platform.
Everything lives on your device. You control it. Messages are end-to-end encrypted.
It will always be ad-free. Even if you don’t pay. (The monthly sub is €12. About $14.)
“Decentralization makes sense for queer people, especially in hostile places. You don’t know if Big Tech actually wants your best interests.”
Bowden, 34, studies technology sociology in Berlin. He knows how these platforms fail us.
Within 48 hours, 12,00 people signed up. Since then, roughly 60,00 users. Weekly average hovers around 5.000.
It is slower than you think. Not a lot of people are online at once in the same city. It feels less like a frantic hookup hub and more like a social experiment. Though casual encounters still happen.
“Midwest bottom jockeys are absolutely devouring this thing,” one user posted on X.
Bowden didn’t expect the Sniffies controversy. It happened weeks after he launched. The timing was lucky. He saw the Match Group investment as proof of what venture capital does to digital spaces: gentrifies them.
“This is why VC models are bad. They force the platform to prioritize profit over people.”
Not All Gay Men Are One Tribe
Big Dating tells us they have the solution. Bumble’s CEO told Axios recently that niche apps don’t last. She said they lack longevity.
The data disagrees.
Justin Finnegan is 35. Software engineer in Toronto. He built Chunkr. It was supposed to be for all gay men. Instead, the bear community adopted it immediately.
Chunkr is iOS only. It mixes profiles, maps, hotspots, and local events.
There is no ad-tracking. The App Store privacy disclosure confirms the developer collects zero data from the app usage.
Finnegan knows why Grindr wins: the network effect. Everyone goes there because everyone is there. It is a powerful feedback loop. But it treats gay dating like a single, monolith market. It ignores subcultures. Tribes. Aesthetics.
“Gay men are not one block. We have different ways of wanting to be seen.”
Chunkr is also launching Rush, a sister app for those outside the bear aesthetic. Another contender, Streakr, debuted recently for gay and straight daters and is already gaining traction with early testers.
Bowden calls Grindr a “hegemonic force.” He and his social circle despise it. Why? Because corporate apps answer to shareholders. Not to you. Their job is to grow revenue, often by hiding basic features behind paywalls.
Grindr told WIRED they hear you. A spokesperson said the experience “hasn’t always felt balanced” for free users. They promised to reduce interruptions. They welcome the competition.
But Bowden isn’t looking to compete within their rules.
A Co-Op, Not A Startup
He studied different economic models. He found something interesting: the platform co-op movement.
Platforms owned and managed by the users themselves.
“I don’t want shareholders getting rich off queer labor. I want social wealth.”
He is structuring MeetMarket under steward ownership. This splits control into three parts.
- Users get voting shares.
- Investors get economic shares, but no vote.
- An independent foundation gets a “golden share” with veto power to protect the mission.
Remember Patagonia? In 2022 they did something similar. All profits go to fighting climate change. No private owners.
Bowden launched a crowdfunding campaign. Become a founding member. Pay €60 a year, or €225 for lifetime access. You get to vote on features. You get to decide where the money goes.
This isn’t new thinking for queer people. Mutual aid is in the DNA. Bowden thinks it’s strange that tech didn’t inherit it earlier.
We are still waiting for it to.
