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After years of chasing user growth, Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd now wants low-quality users off her service. Soon, people with grainy profile pictures or lacking a bio may be forced to leave the app unless they improve. Our product is people. The quality of someone’s experience, how they engage, find what they’re looking for, and monetize depends on the quality of who and what they encounter on the platform, Wolfe Herd explained on the companys earnings call on August 6. She outlined a strategy to create a healthier app ecosystem that involves categorizing users based on the quality of their profiles and pushing out people who are degrading the experience of Bumble. The almost 10-year-old-app has struggled in recent years to regain the momentum it had during the pandemic. In March, Wolfe Herd stepped back into the role as CEO, after ceding it to former Slack executive Lidiane Jones just over a year earlier. Wolfe Herd is now overhauling the app, reorienting it away from a growth-at-all-costs strategy and toward one that prioritizes a higher-quality user base and real connections. As part of that, Bumble is starting to separate the wheat from the chaff. Approve, Improve, and Remove On the earnings call, Wolfe Herd said the app will use AI and human moderators to sort users into three categories: Approve, Improve, and Remove. Approve users, according to Wolfe Herd, are ones who have adequately filled out their profiles, complete with multiple photos, and offer a clear picture of who they are. Improve users have incomplete profiles that could be refined to get more matches. Remove users are bots, scammers, people with multiple profiles, and those who have violated user agreement terms. Theyre also people whose profiles are inadequately filled out and who refuse to improve them. Roughly 10% of Bumble users fall into the Remove category, while the majority fall under the Improve category. “They’re not bad people,” Wolfe Herd said of the Improve members. “They’re not nefarious members. They have no clue how to build a profile. These could be extraordinary people that when you meet them in real life you’re like, How are you single? But when you look at their Bumble profile, they have one photo, they’re wearing a ski mask, and they have no bio. There’s no chance for them on our product in that construct.” Bumble is launching new features to help. The company recently introduced a dating app concierge that offers AI and human advice to help users fill out their profiles. This month, it plans to unveil an AI-powered coaching hub that will give users tips and actionable steps to make their profile more attractive and engaging. If they follow those tips, they may end up in the Approve category. If not, they could get the boot. (The app is also improving its identity verification tools to get bad actors off the platform.) A return to quality Fewer better is always going to win when it comes to connection and relationships, Wolfe Herd explained while laying out the strategy. If you were to swipe through 100 people [who] you never wanted to meet, you would walk away feeling very, very disappointed. But if you were to go through even just 5 or 10 or 15 . . . very high-quality profiles, and everyone was actually quite interesting to you, you would feel very, very compelled to return. Wolfe Herd is banking that getting more users into the Approve category will eventually help the company make money. She noted that Approve users monetize at approximately double the rates of people in the Improve category. The average revenue per user on Bumble has dropped 15% since 2021. For the second quarter of 2025, total revenue decreased 8% year over year, and paying users decreased 11% compared to the same period last year. Everything we build is grounded in real-world outcomes, not endless engagement, Wolfe Herd said on the companys Q2 earnings call. As part of this, the company is winding down the digital marketing that it began during the pandemic. That practice attracted a slew of new users who diluted the apps dating pool and diminished the user experience, according to Wolfe Herd. The Hinge playbook In this regard, Bumbles approach mirrors Hinges playbook. Though parent company Match Groups second-quarter revenue was flat overall, Hinges revenue jumped 25% to $167.5 million, beating analysts expectations. Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff said the company plans on investing $50 million in part to fund Hinges geographic expansion to Latin America and Europe. Hinge has succeeded largely by creating an experience that focuses on showing users quality matches and getting them off the app to form lasting connections. To do this, the app has introduced friction in its user experience, putting limits on swipes and implementing penalties for ghosting to improve user behavior. Hinge is also using AI to refine its matching algorithm and launch new features like notifications to encourage users to keep up conversations with matches they are interested in. Hinges monthly active users rose nearly 20% in the first half of 2025. In getting users to improve their profiles, Bumble is taking another cue from Hinge, which has a more extensive sign-up process than other dating apps. It requires users to answer a series of questions and sets a minimum requirement for the number of photos uploaded to their profile before theyre able to swipe. In their Q2 earnings calls, both Rascoff and Wolfe Herd suggested that building algorithms and features that foster lasting connections is key to attracting younger users. Tinder has launched double-date options and college-specific features to help foster connections in lower-pressure environments. Bumble is doubling down on Bumble BFFa separate app to help users find new friendsand plans to launch more off-platform experiences to increase serendipitous connections. A lot of the exact product solves that we are so maniacally focused on right now are specifically the issues Gen Z has with online dating, Wolfe Herd said on Bumbles earnings call. For example, they don’t want to feel like they swipe endlessly through people they’re not interested in. They don’t want to feel judged. They don’t want to feel rejected. They don’t want to feel like they’re talking to someone that is not actually who they say they are.
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E-Commerce
AI skeptics have found a new way to express their disdain for the creeping presence of artificial intelligence: through slurs. Out on the streets and in stores, people have begun harassing robots they encounter in the wild. (Anyone else feel a bit sorry for the robot?) Online, the internet has revived a Star Warsinspired insult, clanker, with Google Trends data showing a spike in searches for the term in early June. @semdenpriv original sound – semdenpriv POV: Me at the clanker rally in 2088, one TikTok user joked. Keep your oily soulless clanker hands away from my delicious human food, another X user wrote in response to a clip of Elon Musks Optimus robot dishing out popcorn at the Tesla Diner (not a sentence I ever thought Id write). Keep your oily soulless clanker hands away from my delicious human food https://t.co/DXF7JNKD0W— EckhartsLadder (@EckhartsLadder) July 20, 2025 The term has also been picked up by politicians. Sick of yelling ‘REPRESENTATIVE’ into the phone 10 times just to talk to a human being? Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) posted on X last month. My new bill makes sure you dont have to talk to a clanker if you dont want to. Sick of yelling REPRESENTATIVE into the phone 10 times just to talk to a human being? My new bill makes sure you dont have to talk to a clanker if you dont want to. pic.twitter.com/9aUv478gSP— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) July 30, 2025 While some direct their insults at the technology itself, others target those using AI systems. On one thread, suggestions for users of the xAI chatbot Grok included Grokkers, Groklins, and Grocksuckers. Meanwhile, on TikTok, someone coined sloppers for people becoming increasingly overreliant on ChatGPT. @intrnetbf shoutout to Monica. Incredible command over the English language original sound – intrnetbf The trend reflects a broader mood. Concerns about AI among U.S. adults have grown since 2021, according to the Pew Research Center. More than half (51%) say they are more concerned than excited about the technologys rise, with worries ranging from AI taking away jobs to chatbot addiction. Still, some see embracing new slurseven those aimed at robotsas problematic, especially when they echo existing racial slurs or stereotypes. @thebrookboys This bout to be the biggest fear for all Dads in year 2050 #meme #clanker #robo Bell Sound/Temple/Gone/About 10 minutes(846892) – yulu-ism project Others simply fear theyll regret their words later. As one X user wrote: I dont want to have to look a robot in the eye in fifty years and be like, you dont understand it was a different time star wars did give us a slur for robots (clankers) but i dont use it bc i dont want to have to look a robot in the eye in fifty years and be like you dont understand it was a different time— anna !!! (@frogs4girls) July 20, 2025
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E-Commerce
In the late 2010s, cultured meat was everywhereand yet nowhere. From Reddit to major magazine covers, articles touted the latest advances in “lab-grown meat,” promising cruelty-free, environmentally friendly steaks at your local supermarket. The hype was palpable. One 2019 report predicted cultured meats would halve the number of cows on the planet by 2030, disrupting the world’s oldest industry by delivering ethical meat with negligible environmental impact that tasted identical to traditional meatand at a fraction of the price. [Photo: Vow] That promise of rapid disruption terrified conventional animal agriculture stakeholders. Under pressure from these livestock constituents, lawmakers in multiple states have banned this new protein source entirely. Florida and Alabama passed bans in 2024, with more states following. Indiana imposed a manufacturing moratorium with steep fines, Nebraska prohibited its production and sale, and Montanas governor signed legislation to ensure consumers could “continue to enjoy authentic meat.” In June, a Texas ban became law, with the state’s agriculture commissioner touting the “God-given right” to pasture-raised meateven though the vast majority of what Americans eat comes from industrial feedlots. But here’s the irony: Lawmakers are fighting a version of cultured meat that never materialized. Today, while you can eat cultured meat at more than 60 venues in Singapore and Australia, and cultured seafood at two restaurants in the U.S. at the time of this writing, it’s far from the rapid disruption that was forecasted. More than a decade after the world’s first cultured hamburger was announced, the hype has virtually disappeared.The reality of how and why this all transpired is complicated. However, we would argue that what we’re witnessing isn’t industry failure, but the natural evolution of a transformative invention finding its true market fit. Cultured meat technology works; what needed adjustment were the timelines and business models that promised too much, too quickly, and to replicate conventional meats that people already enjoy en masse.Rather than viewing this as a setback, some in the industry are discovering something potentially more valuable: sustainable, scalable pathways to market that don’t require displacing existing agriculture but can grow alongside it. As the industry turns the page to a new chapter, once uncertain regulatory pathways are now established in multiple countries. [Photo: Vow] The technology itself continues to advance. Production yields are improving, costs are declining, and new species beyond traditional livestock are proving viable for cultivation.More importantly, early market success demonstrates genuine consumer appetite. In Singapore, where cultured meat has been available the longest, restaurants report strong repeat customers and growing demand. In Australia, where cultured meat became available at dozens of restaurants in recent weeks, initial sales and demand for the items are taking off. Forged Cultured Japanese Quail Whipped Pate [Photo: Vow] This suggests cultured meat purveyors arent just scratching a theoretical itch, but delivering real value and excitement that consumers recognize and seek out.This reality is leading to a strategic pivot that may actually benefit both the industry and consumers: innovation over imitation. Rather than trying to perfectly replicate a chicken wing or rib-eye steakproducts that traditional animal agriculture already produces and consumers are accustomed tocompanies that are finding success are creating entirely new culinary experiences that excite chefs and diners alike. Forged Cultured Japanese Quail Foie Gras [Photo: Vow] Take Japanese quail, a species that demonstrates cultivated meat’s unique advantages. Traditional quail foie gras is impossible to produce commerciallythe birds are so petite that conventional methods are prohibitively labor-intensive, and the production process itself remains controversial. Japanese quail, however, proves remarkably well-suited for cultivation technology, enabling the creation of previously undoable delicacies like foie gras, whipped pâté, and even edible tallow candles. Forged Cultured Japanese Quail Tallow Candle [Photo: Vow] And Vow can make a lot of it. The company recently completed the largest cultured meat harvest in history: more than one metric ton of quail. And it projects it will have the capacity, by the end of 2025, to harvest up to 130 metric tons annually. While that’s still minimal compared with the 12.29 million metric tons of beef American farmers produced in 2023 and 2024, it is proof that cultured meat can offer consumers genuinely new choices and advance consumer acceptance. Its an illustration of how the industry can position itself as expanding culinary possibilities while avoiding potential conflicts with traditional agriculture.Rather than letting politicians dictate what should be on our plates in order to protect incumbent industries, we should trust consumers to decide for themselves. When given the freedom to choose, consumers are embracing these innovations as exciting additions to culinary experiences, the evidence suggests. Thats a decision best left to diners, not lawmakers.
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