I am pretty sure people get upset not when OkC makes “a change”, but when OkC rips out features that they find useful. Case in point. “Visitors”, was legitimately useful to me, a number of my real life friends (male, and female), and a large number of other folks who are vociferously complaining about the change in this, and other threads. Useful, for a number of reasons that I can expand on in detail, if someone was actually curious. The same holds for a fair number of other useful, fun, or engagement promoting features that have vanished in favor of Tinderizing the UI.
I’ve been an OkC user for nearly a decade now. I’ve been a paid premium member since that was an option, because filters (And incognito). I’ve met friends, lovers, and partners on it. It was an incredibly useful tool for meeting people in my two home bases, and in places that I have traveled to. It was great for meeting like minded folk, for meeting folks for tea, for walks, for dates, for ridiculously hot sudden spark of compatibility sleepless, and memorable nights. I actually, regularly use this thing. For the past few years, especially since acquisition I have been using it less, and less, as it has gotten less, and less useful.
These days, I use Tinder more, and more. They seem to have a better understanding of their user base, and a clarity of vision, and the execution that OkC seems to have lost. They’ve been progressively adding great new features, that have made me a happier paid subscriber/user.
On another hand, what Tinder has shown, is that there is a large group of people who can’t be bothered to write profiles, answer questions, do quizzes, etc. That’s perfectly fine. “You do you boo”. OkC was for the opposite end of the spectrum, where while still being heavily visual, also required one to be able to read, write, and answer coherent questions in a vaguely intelligent manner. It was data driven. It had a sense of humor. There were statistics. Filters. Even a vague understanding that a Friends match, and Lovers match, was not the same thing. That was exactly the kind of thing that I was looking for, and that I enjoyed. These are also the features that have been steadily vanishing.
I don’t want OkTinder. Tinder is already great at being Tinder, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.
I do, however, miss OkC being good at being OkC, and I feel like the folks currently managing OkC don’t quite get what it is good at, or why.