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English|Chinese Gen Z No Longer Trust Matchmaking, Here’s Why

English|Chinese Gen Z No Longer Trust Matchmaking, Here’s Why
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Image Source: Visual China
2021 had been a bad year for matchmaking platforms in China.
Users had lost their trust in matchmaking platforms when scandal broke out that staff could see users’ chat history and promote products to them accordingly.
Jiayuan.com was the Chinese matchmaking platform that was exposed of such misconduct.
In early December 2021, Chinese news outlet the Paper reported that Jiayuan.com violated users’ privacy by accessing users’ chat history. Jiayuan.com would access users’ chat history and browse history on its platform to market products to users accordingly via telephone.
Relevant authorities have started investigation on the matter after the news report was released.
On December 10, 2021, the Jiangsu Province Consumer Protection Commission summoned Baihejiayuan, Marry & Love Holdings and Zhenai for online regulatory talks. Later on the 15th, relevant authorities in Shanghai also summoned Baihejiayuan, Zhenai, Marry & Love Holdings and Yijianyuan to discuss issues such as privacy violation and scams.
However, the scandals did not attract much attention from young users on social media in contrast to their reaction to Zhihu and Douban being punished by the authorities.
Jiayuan.com’s apology released on Weibo on December 7 only got comments from 45 users as of December 26. This is not uncommon. Although Jiayuan.com has over two million followers on Weibo, it barely gets any comments on most of its posts. Zhenai, another matchmaking platform in China, faces similar situations on Chinese social media.                                                            
Baihejiayuan and Zhenai had 6.87 and 5.38 million monthly active users respectively as of the first half of 2021, according to statistics from BigData Research. Baihejiayuan and Zhenai are the two biggest matchmaking platforms in China. The third biggest matchmaking platform, Yidui, had only 2.52 million monthly active users, which is significantly lesser than the top two players.
Jiayuan.com, Baihe and Zhenai’s lack of presence on Weibo reflects the current matchmaking industry in China – the lack of popularity among Gen Z users.
Statistics from Weibo’s 2020 User Development Report released in March 2021 show that 80% of Weibo’s 224 million users were Gen Z users born in the 1990s or 2000s.
It is unusual to see scandals that involve privacy violation to not receive much attention and criticism from Gen Z users.
It appears young people do not care much about matchmaking platforms.
The crumbling business modelMatchmaking platforms no longer work mainly because users have lost trust in them.
Jiayuan.com, which was the first matchmaking company in China to go public, has not developed a heathy and sustainable business model yet since its founding.
In Q4 2011, Jiayuan.com registered a net loss of 1.2 million yuan. The Q4 fiscal reported sent Jiayuan.com’s price downhill on Nasdaq, marking a key moment for the company.
In 2012, Jiayuan.com started to promote its high-end matchmaking service, which is very similar to tradition matchmaking business. The service is provided by professional matchmakers who headhunt for good candidates that are marriage material. The high-end matchmaking service became an important business model for Jiayuan.com. Its contributing to the company’s revenue continued to increase over years.

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