Field notes
Notes on building Maybe.
Why we built it the way we did. What we explicitly refused. What's hard. What's working. The architecture, the principles, the open questions — written as we go.
How dating apps actually make money
The sticker price is subscriptions and boosts. The real revenue is behavioral data, licensed out to insurers, employers, and political campaigns. Here's the dating-app money map.
Read →What is mesh networking? (And why it matters for social apps.)
Most apps are cloud servers with phones attached. Mesh networking flips that — the phones are the network, and the server is just a directory. Here's what changes.
Read →Why we charge $5 (and never anything else)
Most dating apps either show you ads or sell your data. Maybe takes the third option almost nobody tries — charge users once for the thing that actually costs us money.
Read →