Long-distance matches on dating apps are a dead end but apps keep showing them to inflate your match count

You live in Sacramento. You set your distance to 25 miles. Hinge shows you someone in San Francisco — 85 miles away. Their location says 'San Francisco' but Hinge decided they are close enough to your preferences. You match, chat for a week, realize neither of you will drive 2 hours for a first date, and the match dies. Tinder Passport and Bumble Travel Mode let people swipe in cities they are visiting — so you match with someone 'in Sacramento' who is actually on a layover and flying home tomorrow. So what? Every long-distance match that goes nowhere consumes the same time and emotional energy as a local match. You invest in the conversation, feel hopeful, then hit the logistics wall. After 3-4 of these, you become jaded and invest less in all matches, including local ones. Apps inflate their match numbers by being loose with distance filters, which makes the product feel more active than it is. A user who gets 10 matches per week (3 local, 7 too far) feels like the app is working, when really only 3 matches were viable. Why does this persist? More matches = higher perceived value = higher retention = higher revenue. If apps strictly enforced distance filters, match volume would drop 30-50% in smaller cities, and users would perceive the app as dead. Showing long-distance matches is padding the numbers. Apps also sell premium features (Passport, Travel Mode) that explicitly create cross-city matches — a feature that generates revenue from long-distance connections that almost never work.