Tinder Plans To Charge Users Over 30 - And We're Offended

Starting March 2nd, Tinder plans to roll out Tinder Plus subscriptions for $9.99 a month. With the subscription, you can have an unlimited amount of "likes" (which were previously free), you can undo swipes (which is great for us drunk swipers), and interact with people who are outside your zipcode.

Sounds pretty good except for this little caveat: if you already celebrated your 30th birthday party then you're going to have to pay $19.99 for the exact same package. (If you live in the U.K. then there's even worse news for you. People under the age of 28 have to pay £3.99 ($6), while people over the age are charged £14.99 ($23). So on the bright side, the States aren't scamming you as much as the U.K. would.

All together now: WHAT. THE. EFF.

How is this not ageism? What could possibly be the reason for blatantly different treatment? Well, according to a Tinder spokeswoman it all comes down to income; Tinder is assuming that people age 30+ have more money in the bank (and presumably, take dating more seriously?) and thus would be willing to shell out more money for the dating app. 

"Lots of products offer differentiated price tiers by age, like Spotify does for students, for example," Rosette Pambakian, a spokeswoman for Tinder wrote to Bloomberg Business. "Tinder is no different; during our testing we've learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus, but are more budget constrained, and need a lower price to pull the trigger."

Even with that justification, though, it still seems...icky to us. The assumption that 30-year-olds make more money (or would even want to spend said money on Tinder) is an assumption at that and one that feels like we're getting majorly taken advantage of. Maybe we are. On the upside, one current user says she would actually be interested in paying more - not because of her age - but for a better user experience.

"If Tinder agrees to stop showing me profiles of grown ass men who have pictures of themselves doing keg stands and have Kanye quotes as their taglines I'd maybe throw them a few bucks for making my user experience less painful...but no Tinder, I'm not going to pay you 20 bones just because I'm of a certain age."