Sniffies Match Group deal users fear app will change

Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, has bought a major stake in Sniffies, the cruising app built by and for queer men, with the option to take full ownership down the line.

Sniffies, the map-based cruising platform that built its reputation on being raw, direct and unapologetically queer, has accepted a $100 million investment from Match Group, the corporate dating giant behind Tinder, Hinge and OKCupid. The deal, announced on 27 April, gives Match a significant minority stake in the Seattle-based app and includes an option to buy the rest of it outright in future. Sniffies has around 3 million monthly active users and sends over 20 million messages a day.

Founder and CEO Blake Gallagher has insisted the app will not change. He says the investment will help Sniffies improve safety, develop new features faster and grow into new international markets, while staying true to its no-frills, sex-positive identity. But the response from users tells a different story. The top comment on Sniffies' own Instagram announcement post called the deal a betrayal, saying the app had lost the gritty, anonymous quality that made it different from every other dating platform. The fear is a familiar one: that a product built around queer community values will be softened and sanitised once corporate money is in the room.

There is also a harder piece of context. As part of the deal, Match Group is shutting down Archer, its own dating app for queer men that launched three years ago. Sniffies is now Match's bet on the GBTQ+ market. The pattern is one the company has used before. It took a minority stake in Hinge in 2017 and then bought it outright the following year. Users watching that history will draw their own conclusions.

Sniffies is currently web-only, having been removed from the Apple App Store last year over content restrictions. Whether the Match investment changes that, and at what cost to the platform's identity, remains to be seen.