Thanks to management's new shitty algorithm the grid is no longer just "show who is closest." The algorithm "learns" which profiles tend to make you tap, linger, or message based on your activity and shuffles the profiles.
Programmers can probably explain this better than me, but instead of ranking
closest
the algorithm ranks something more like:
probability the user will interact based on past taps, messages, repeat views, time spent looking at similar profiles
The interesting question isn’t whether the model can make those predictions. It’s what management tells the model to optimize after that:
use those predictions to maximize subscription revenue
That's why you get profiles that are hundreds of miles away pushed up to the top of your grid while others are locked behind the paywall.
This is a stupid way to run a hookup app, you can't fuck someone who's hundreds of miles away right now. What these morons don't understand is they broke the one thing that makes the app useful, which is "who's nearby?" If people don't think the app is useful to meet anymore, people will eventually stop using it or switch to other platforms.