Grindr's $500 AI Plan Asks: What Is a Gay App For?

$500 per month. That's what Grindr wants to charge for EDGE, its new AI-powered premium tier that runs on what the company calls "gAI" technology—pronounced "gay-eye."

The announcement raises some uncomfortable questions. Has arranging sex become so complicated that we need robot assistance? At $500 monthly, wouldn't other options be more economical? And most importantly: Do the people running Grindr actually understand what Grindr is supposed to be?

For an app built on the promise of direct, efficient hookups, the AI rollout feels like exactly the wrong kind of complexity—another layer of friction on a platform that was once elegantly simple.

How Efficiency Became Exhausting

Back in 2009, Grindr cost $2.99 per month for an ad-free version that let you browse 100 profiles. Clean, straightforward, effective. That version is long gone.

The turning point, according to former marketing employee Ryan (who requested anonymity), came in 2022 when Grindr went public. "The focus shifted from Grindr's users to its investors," he explains. New CEO George Arison brought a Silicon Valley vision that prioritized AI obsession over the app's "irreverent queer startup" roots.

Today's Grindr offers two paid tiers: Xtra and Unlimited, ranging from $150 to $300 annually. The free version? A minefield of ads and bots. Every tap triggers an advertisement. Fake profiles flood inboxes with spam. The situation got so bad that Grindr had to publish a "Scam Awareness Guide" to help users avoid getting phished.

This is textbook "enshittification"—Cory Doctorow's term for when companies deliberately degrade their product to maximize profit. The worse the free experience becomes, the more people pay to escape it. There's no incentive to improve because degradation is the business model.

"There's a feedback loop," says Jack, 46, who used the app from 2009 to 2022. "It gets shitty. More people leave because it's shitty, and they have to make it even shittier for the remaining users to maximize revenue."

The Culture Moved On

But Grindr's crisis isn't just about business models. Gay culture itself has evolved—possibly beyond the need for a dedicated hookup app.

Culture writer Brian Moylan points to a fundamental shift: "It's so much easier to find a gay guy now. You go on a hot guy's Instagram, there's a rainbow flag in the bio, and you can message them."

The expansion of PrEP (HIV prevention medication) and broader knowledge about safer sex gave queer men more sexual freedom. Meanwhile, American attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people became increasingly accepting. When Grindr launched in 2009, gay marriage was still illegal nationwide. The cultural landscape has transformed completely.

Many users have migrated to Sniffies, a competitor launched in 2018 that focuses more directly on hookups and public sex. At $19.99 per month (with discounts for longer commitments), it's significantly cheaper than Grindr and offers minimal ads in its free version. Crucially, Sniffies operates primarily as a web app to avoid Apple's adult content restrictions—embracing the subversive edge that Grindr seems to have lost.

"People are fed up with the apps in general and want more real-life experiences," Moylan explains. "That's why you're getting this rise of Sniffies, which is making it more like how cruising used to be."

Phil, 29, puts it bluntly: "Once you realize you don't need Grindr to hook up, there's no reason to go back." He and his husband find Instagram and Twitter DMs more effective than any gay-specific app.

The Mainstream Trap

Grindr has become a cultural institution. Sabrina Carpenter samples its notification sounds. Late-night shows make sketches about it. It's the punchline in jokes about its own ubiquity. Politicians and religious figures caught using it have become a tired trope.

But this mainstream recognition creates a paradox. Shouldn't an app about sex and hookups maintain some edge? Why would gay men want to use a platform that straight people know so much about?

AJ Balance, Grindr's Chief Product Officer, embraces this evolution. He repeatedly used the term "gayborhood" in our conversation, describing Grindr as a community space rather than just a hookup platform. "Within the neighborhood, there are places for hookups and casual encounters, and places for dates and friends and travel," he explains.

This vision aligns with how many users actually employ the app now—primarily as a travel tool for finding restaurant recommendations and local gay bars rather than sexual partners. But as former employee Ryan notes: "That's not what it was made to do. It should be helping gay guys fuck faster."

The company's 15 million active users include 1.2 million paying subscribers, suggesting the business model works financially. But user satisfaction tells a different story.

Perhaps the real question isn't what Grindr should become, but whether we still need it at all.