It’s common knowledge but the juxtaposition is shocking.
1: Citizen’s Monetization Infuriation
I was considering downloading a neighborhood watch application. I’d heard good things about Citizen so I decided to check it out.
At first glance it looks good: protect the world, 4.8 stars, 474 thousand reviews. But let’s dig a little deeper.
I downloaded every app story review that was publicly visible and organized it hierarchically. This does not look like a 4.8 star app. After a double take, I decided to look at the distribution of ratings.
An average rating of 1.5 over this time interval. Probably the thing to start looking at first. Something I want to emphasize: I scraped every single publically available reviewsince July 2023 sorted by recency. So there has been a massive drop in its rating.
Explanation
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to access pre July 2023 reviews, but by exploring the contents of the reviews, the story quickly becomes clear. The app spent several years building a lot of trust as a communicator of urgent news. This trust led to its several million users turning on notifications and relying on this app as their source of local neighborhood news.
Citizen decided to cash in on this trust by first paywalling the majority of this app’s features. However, they went a step further and converted their previous safety oriented notifications to an aggressive fear mongering advertising campaign that led consumers right into a paywall. This combination made users extremely angry.
I used the full dashboard to pull up some excerpts that best represent this story.
App Has Changed For The Worse
The app was previously fine and useful. The. It progressively started bombarding me with notifications for an area well outside of the mileage zone established in my settings. When I went to turn off notifications and adjust settings, I discovered that these features were limited without a paid subscription. Every time I attempted to do anything in my account settings, I’d instead get an annoying pop-up for a paid subscription. So I deleted the app entirely and now don’t use it. How clever are you now, developers? You had to ruin a good thing?
Super scammy app
This company has created a very clever way to send you ads to sign up for the pay version. The app used to be awesome but then went to a pay. The purpose of the app is to receive notifications of events around you. So obviously you have to turn notifications on. This is where they get tricky… the will send you a notification that there is a sex offender near you (true in 99% of any neighborhood). When you click on the blurred image it immediately tells you you have to pay to find out who the sex offender is. Clever marketing but not sure how I would feel making people pay to find out who is a threat to your kids. Not the most conscientious company for sure.
Pay to Use
Bombarded by non-stop pop ups asking you to pay $20 a month to use basic functions. Used to be a great app, now you have to fork over money for every single little feature, even to change your address. Don’t waste your time.
More
Subscription Concerns ~300 Mentions
App Rendered Useless
Basically impossible to use this app without buying a subscription.This app barley helps.Atp o would rather go watch it in real life🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️
Crucial Information Should Be Accessible
I just got this app but- there is absolutely no reason you should have to pay for a subscription. Life threatening information and details SHOULD BE FREE. Why would you take that away from people?? That just absolutely makes no sense whatsoever. Like oh no someone got shot near by you, buuuut 🙆♀️🙆♀️🤭 pay $5 to know the deets and hear radio messages that could be really useful. Really?..
Sex Offender Information Access ~200 mentions
Disgusting
This is absolutely disgusting. You dangle information about dangerous people in front of people but hide it behind a paywall. I try to check on a child predator who was positioned right across the street from my house and all of his information (including his photo) was blurred. You are putting people at risk by gatekeeping all of the actually useful information.
Paying to see sex offender info that should be free
I think it’s crazy, you wanna view info on the sex offenders in your area?!! Ok but you gotta pay 1st if you wanna keep yourself and your family safe!!! You shouldn’t have to pay to see their info/faces and to protect your child and or/children from these freaks. I’m sorry but I think that is just crazy
Corporate Greed in Safety Apps ~150 mentions
Another App Ruined
Another app ruined by corporate greed. It’s really a shame this app could not simply exist to be useful for the safety of its users that made them as big as they are today, but it instead squeezes pennies from those still not 100% financially recovered from the pandemic. We should all uninstall this app & rally behind another FREE, location-based safety app to send the message.
Worthless App
Unless you pay for a premium subscription, there is NO useful information on the app. Why would I pay for a premium subscription to get free, public information? Yet another formerly great app ruined by corporate greed. Absolutely worthless.
2: AirBnB – Hotels just might survive
4.8 stars. 683 thousand ratings. Everyone knows AirBnB.
You know where this is going. Let’s dig in.
Yeesh. Not much good there. Good news for us though is that the timeline is a little more interesting in this analysis.
App Interface Issues
The first thing that jumps out at me is the massive spike in App Interface Issues starting in 2025Q2. Apparently AirBnB unveiled an exciting new redesign of their application in June of 2025 and, well, I’ll let you see what the users have to say. I used the interactive dashboard to surface these excerpts.
1 Star - New update
The new update is terrible. You can no longer search for a specific home type with categories and the page is annoying to navigate through. Before I could search for a specific category such as tiny home, cabin, amazing pools, or homes with games. Now all I can search through is a destination and scroll through thousands of homes until you find what you’re looking for. I hate it
1 Star - Awful Update
This app used to be so easy to navigate. I would appreciate if you could revoke these changes and return the app to its original functions. I loved being able to filter the specific type of home we wanted to stay in instead of having to scroll down until I found one! Why when I ask for cabins in Broken Bow Oklahoma you don’t give me Cabins, you give me Homes in Cabins,Florida????
More
The app no longer provides you the functionality to explore properties based on certain characteristics. You used to be able to search by features like “waterfront” or “lake” or “castles” even! Now you have to sift through so many more listings that don’t meet the mark.
Hate the new layout! I definitely won’t recommend using the app now. It hurts me to say this because the app has been the most useful app when it comes to booking vacations. But their new interface has made it so much harder to relieve find a place that feels unique or customized to your trips desires. The old interface allowed you to look up places based on a vibe whether you were looking for something tropical or an OMG! Experience it made it feel like the app was happy to get you your dream destination. Now, it’s like every other space to book. Gives you some filters sends you on your way no personal touch. It was a downgrade from the previous version. I get updates and new look, but at least make it the best of both worlds, don’t take the best part of what made the app unique.
Made what was uniquely great about using Airbnb terrible by trying to forcefeed experiences and services. One of the best ways to plan a trip is now gone. If you wanted a lake trip- there’s a ton of lakes we could go to. I don’t care about which one. It was so great to be able to just see all of the lake houses in a single list and look for ones we like. That discoverability is gone. Now you have to know exactly where you’d like to go. Absolutely no reason to use this app anymore. Maybe there’s a reason most companies have product teams lol
This app used to be so easy to navigate. I would appreciate if you could revoke these changes and return the app to its original functions. I loved being able to filter the specific type of home we wanted to stay in instead of having to scroll down until I found one! Why when I ask for cabins in Broken Bow Oklahoma you don’t give me Cabins, you give me Homes in Cabins,Florida????
I liked the option to browse homes in any location by unique features such as “pool” “a-frame” “near national parks” etc. I liked finding a home based on its features and let that guide the location of the trip.
This new update got rid of the fun categories! Boo! Way less fun. I don’t always book for experiences/services and go more so to explore and see interesting places. Please bring back the categories.. (earth homes, lakefront, treehouses, etc)
3: Hinge
To start off with, it actually turns out that Hinge has by far the best reviews of any of the dating apps I analyzed.
Thre is significantly more discussion around Connection and Matchmaking than any other dating app, and much less discussion about Subscription Billing Issues, Technical Issues, and Scams and Security.
Maybe its 4.4 star rating is reflective of it’s current state.
JK
But the juxtaposition is less extreme on this one. I can believe that these reviews might have come from a 4.4 star app that has had some challenges with marketplace dynamics as it scaled.
Account Bans and Appeals
I think the presence of this topic on 1 star reviews is not neccessarily a problem. In a dating app, you are guaranteed to have a set of users that harass others. If you ban those users, they will leave you one star reviews. If you don’t, many more users will leave 1 star reviews over harassment issues. At a high level, it’s a pretty easy choice to decide what course to take.
In all honesty, the fact that there are no harassment issue popping up makes me think that they might have been pretty effective in their harassment deterence. I don’t plan to judge from these app reviews who was in the right/wrong on whether a ban was deserved: I have access to only one side of the story.
The one case that stuck out to me when reading through the excerpts on this topic however was the fact that it seems like users get banned when they take long stretches away from the app.
Band account for no apparent reason
Unfair account ban on Hinge. I had a previously verified account that was suddenly banned without reason, and now I’m being told I can never make another account. I wasn’t even active - I was in the process of reactivating my old account when it was banned, hadn’t interacted with anyone, and was using the same photos that were already verified. Feels like an overly harsh and permanent penalty without any explanation or opportunity to correct anything. Definitely a deterrent from recommending Hinge to others.
Terrible don’t download
Hinge has been the worst dating app known to man. My account was paused by myself because i was taking a break and i randomly get an email saying my account has been banned. They did not tell me why whatsoever. And then i tried to appeal the decision and they pretty much told me to get lost. So unless you want to get banned for NO APPARENT REASON, don’t download this useless app. Terrible support for this app as well. 0/10
Additionally there is a pretty extensive discussion around the lack of appeal process or explanation for banned users. It makes sense but from these reviews it looks as if Hinge tends to bias for recall rather than precision banning users. One review stuck out to me as emblamatic of this issue if the review is accurate
Racist
I got banned after a man called me ghetto. I didn’t start it. I didn’t escalate it. But somehow I’m the one removed from the app — with no warning, no explanation, and no chance to appeal … If this app can’t tell the difference between someone being disrespected and someone defending themselves, then it’s not a safe or fair space especially for black women. Especially to side with someone being racist.
It’s honestly pretty entertaining to read through some of these if you want to explore the excerpts yourself. I don’t particurlarly want to post the most entertaining ones, but if you’re bored I’d highly reccommend exploring the “Account Bans and Appeals” topic.
Some Happy Love Stories to Finish
In the fall of 2023 I had just moved in to a new city and had downloaded Hinge and a couple of dating apps. I had been on the apps for four years at this point and honestly wasn’t very optimistic. After a couple of months, I came across the profile of one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t come up with anything witty, so I just sent the most basic message ever, which was asking what bands she liked to a prompt where she mentioned her favorite music genre. After a few (still very basic) messages, I asked her out. We were a bit awkward at first, but by the third date, we talked so much the restaurant closed without us even noticing. Fast forward to today where we were just married earlier this month and couldn’t be happier. We often mention how without Hinge it would have been almost impossible for us to have met otherwise. Thank you Hinge for prioritizing relationships and for helping my wife and I find each other.
We chatted for two weeks before meeting up… and as it turns out I had even gone on a Hinge date with her sister. Christina is everything I could ask for in a partner and more. Kind, funny, strong, caring and the most wonderful communicator. It’s only been three weeks but we often say to each other how it feels like we’ve known each other for so much longer. I feel like there isnt much I wouldnt do for this wonderful soul. This is the kind of thing my heart just doesn’t have the right words to aptly put how lucky and grateful I am for every second, minute, hour and day I get with this wonderful person. Thank you Hinge.
Footnotes
[1] This data was organized by leveraging hierarchical mixture models.
[2] The annotated dataset is publicly accessible at index_70a9076f7b0b4f20974e76349b66c991. This is most easily accessed using sturdy-stats-sdk. Additional documentation.