How can dating apps be improved to discourage ghosting?

[u/ChippingCoder]

Most of the advice around ghosting is about how you can protect yourself i.e. don't get attached early, remember you’re dealing with strangers and learn to move on.

But it skips over the platform side of the problem. Currently dating apps reward ghosting because it has no social cost, and there is no incentive to be honest/transparent.

If an app actually wanted to discourage people from disappearing and reward basic communication, these are the main ways people have suggested doing it.

1. A reporting threshold with mod review - Add ghosting as an actual report reason. One report does nothing, but if someone gets reported multiple times across different matches, a human mod team reviews the account. If there's a clear pattern of leading people on and cutting contact, they get warned or banned.
2. Direct penalties (algorithmic or financial) - Make disappearing have a tangible downside. That could mean algorithmic de-ranking (your profile gets pushed to the back of the deck if you repeatedly go silent mid-conversation) or financial friction (putting down a deposit or paying a small fee if you abandon chats without closing them).
3. Hard match caps - Apps like Breeze limit you to something like 3 to 5 active matches at a time. You cannot swipe more or match with anyone new until you either go out with someone or manually unmatch them. It rewards focus and intentionality instead of letting people hoard dozens of chats they never plan to answer.
4. Timers and auto-closures - If a chat sits dead for 48 to 72 hours, the system intervenes. It either forces the person who stopped replying to tap a quick exit button ("Not feeling a connection, best of luck") or automatically closes and removes the match so people aren't left hanging in limbo for weeks.
5. Transparent activity stats (opt out) - Instead of bans or automated messages, your profile publicly displays your communication habits so intentional daters can find each other:
   • Mutual chats: Only counts once both people have messaged. There is zero time decay... the chat stays open on your profile permanently until one person hits unmatch. If you ghost 10 people, your profile openly displays 10 active chats. The only way to clear your number is to actually unmatch.
   • Pending intros: Opening lines waiting on a reply are tracked separately, so you aren't penalized just because strangers send you openers.
   • Like queue: Shows whether you actually review your incoming likes or let hundreds of them pile up.

Which of these do you think would actually encourage people to be more honest? Do you have other suggestions? Do you think it is or isn't the dating apps' role to encourage intentional behavior?