“Voice Prompts” on Hinge… slightly cringe. Dating giant Match Group owns Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid, and 20+ other e-romance businesses. Algorithms rule the world, from suggesting your Spotify tunes to hooking you on TikTok. Match has long used algorithms to surface eligible singles who also love Nirvana and vegan sushi. Now its techy selection process is getting a human edge:

• Matchmakers: For $5/week, Match.com users can lean on human dating coaches to handpick two top candidates based on their answers to four personal questions.
• Match said it created the feature because, for some singles, the pandemic added urgency to find a serious relationship.

#CuffingSeason… During the pandemic, couch-bound singles flocked to dating apps for (virtual) company. Bumble video-chat usage soared 93% after a national emergency was declared, and Match added features to its apps — think free video calls, virtual trivia nights, and Insta-like social feeds. But the real money is in paid subscriptions like Tinder Gold and perks like unlimited swipes. Case in point: Tinder is the #1 grossing lifestyle app worldwide, with a record 10.4M “payers” last quarter. Human matchmaking could be apps’ next premium perk.

What Zooms in must Zoom out… The Zoom boom may be over. On Monday, the company reported slightly better than expected earnings — but revenue growth slowed for the third consecutive quarter. Zoom’s quarterly sales grew just 35% from last year, compared to 10X faster growth a year ago. Shares slid 15% yesterday, dropping Zoom’s market cap to a third of its pandemic peak. Now Zoom’s focused on two things:

• Corporate customers: The number of Zoom customers who spend $100K+ annually nearly doubled last quarter from last year, to 2.5K.
• New offerings: Zoom is exploring growth opportunities, like licensing its video tech to other apps and letting people host paid events (think: Zumba class).

Zoomed in too far… Zoom’s growth didn’t just slow from pandemic highs: It had its slowest quarter since 2018. Other pandemic thrivers also experienced the “DPF effect” — demand pulled forward. Demand boomed all at once early in the pandemic (aka was “pulled forward”), then slowed as new customers dwindled. The stock market’s up 26% this year, but some WFH winners are seeing slowdown-driven selloffs:

• Peloton shares are down 71% this year, after Equinox and SoulCycle reopened. Sales grew 6% last quarter compared to 232% in the same quarter last year.
• Online education company Chegg’s shares are also down 71% this year as schools resume and subscription saturation intensifies (#subscripturation).
• Pinterest shares are down 39% this year since everyone’s already created too many kitchen inspo moodboards.
• Netflix added only 4.4M subscribers last quarter, and lost 400K subscribers in North America, after adding a whopping 36M subs worldwide last year.

• Slick: The US and several non-OPEC partners tapped into national oil reserves to bring down high gas prices, but some experts say it still won’t be enough.
• Pills: Walgreens, Walmart, and CVS were found liable for creating a “public nuisance” in two Ohio counties by enabling the opioid crisis.
• Hoodie: Gap and Nordstrom shares plunged after the retailers disappointed on earnings and said they expected supply issues to cut into holiday profits.
• Hacky: Apple sued NSO Group, an Israeli company that makes a software that enables governments to hack into iPhones, offering a warning to other spyware sellers.
• Heat: Olympic sponsors like Coke and Airbnb face pressure to support tennis star Peng Shuai, whose location is unknown after she accused a former Chinese official of sexual assault.
• Deliver: FedEx, UPS, and USPS said holiday-shipping clogs wouldn’t be too bad thanks to added capacity, noting that last year’s bottlenecks were 6X worse.

• Earnings expected from: John Deere and Cracker Barrel

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Match Group, CVS, Apple, General Motors, Netflix, Tesla, Walmart, Spotify

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