Lies, damned lies and discounts.....

[Jun]

Well, here's a subscription "offer" for Grindr.
If an 84% discount gets me to £71.88, it follows that this is 16% of the full price. So the full price is £449.25. Who are they kidding ?

[Gaybutton]

Who are they kidding ?

I guess they're kidding me. When I do the math their numbers come out correctly. What am I doing wrong? Math was never exactly my best subject anyway. In a full semester of high school geometry, you know how many proofs I got right? A grand total of 1.

Whether those numbers are correct or not, that seems awfully expensive to me for use of an app. I'll do without.

[Jun]

My point is the £449 looks like a fake price, since almost no one in their right mind would pay it and I bet they almost never offer it at that.
Even the £71.88 is high.

[Dodger]

I'm apparently totally out-of-touch - because I thought these gay dating sites were FREE, i.e., Gayromeo, Blued, Hornet, Grindr, etc.

[Gaybutton]

I'm apparently totally out-of-touch - because I thought these gay dating sites were FREE, i.e., Gayromeo, Blued, Hornet, Grindr, etc.

Most are free, but only to an extent. The free versions usually contain ads and restrictions, such as limits on the number of profiles you can view, limits whether you can view X-rated photos, limit numbers of chats, and several other features depending on the app. The paid versions, of course, have no such limitations and contain no ads.

Personally, I'm fine with the free versions of all the apps.

[Jun]

I have been using the free versions of all apps.

However, Hornet have been harassing customers with ads that run on and on, with fake close buttons etc.
As a result Hornet have lost market share in the UK, so Grindr have about 100 times as many users.

Grindr have started running the nuisance ads, but not quite as be as as Hornet.

Hornet is more popular in Thailand than the UK. Particularly outside of Pattaya. I gather another board member has subscribed to Hornet for THB 200. That's an interesting price point.

Perhaps it explains why the Hornet market share is holding up far better in Thailand than the UK.
People might pay a little for an ad free experience.

[Jun]

A 12 month Hornet subscription is usually £49.99 in the UK, but they have had offers where it is briefly offered at £16
As soon as I arrive in Thailand, it's offered at 399 baht. Which I accepted.
That's less than one off fee. I've already met one delightful lad who lives outside the 2km range that I can see with the free version here.
The advertising on Hornet had been excessive, sometimes with adverts that run for 2 minutes or more and have fake close buttons, which take you to the play store. These do not comply with google's rules, but when I complained to Google, they took no action.
My previous solution was to use Grindr instead, but the spam ads are creeping in there as well now.

So I'm now paying for the ad free version of Hornet.

After discussions with another board member, it sounds like the advertising is far less intrusive on his iPhone. Is it possible that Apple enforce rules more than Google? I have had the same issues on 3 Android devices.

I also note that a Grindr sub is about 1600 baht per year here. Compared with the £72 last time I looked in the UK. I'm not a buyer at either price.

[Jun]

To tidy up my Grindr screen, I'm filtering it by the usual process of blocking every lady boy who pops up. That's over 60 of them on this trip, so far. Almost all in Pattaya.

One of whom seems to be working in my local coffee shop.

[christianpfc]

8.99 GBP/week x 52 weeks/year = 467 GBP/year, if you use weekly subscription. Numbers don't match exactly, but I think that's what 84% saving by taking a yearly subscription refers to.

Compared to blued and hornet, grindr is unreasonably expensive. And I don't like that you can't link or refer to profiles on grindr in any way. Therefore, I'm not paying for grindr, but currently have paid versions of blued and hornet.

[Pigseye27]

Noted that some ads on Hornet can’t be closed resulting in exiting the app and in one case resetting my iPad. If I was an advertiser, this negativity wouldn’t be a plus. I refuse to pay for something which should be free. I’ll put up with all the ads for now but probably use the app less often.