Like period-trackers, step-counters, sleep apps and the world of health tech more widely, relationship apps operate on the premise that self-knowledge looks like a data portrait. They position intimacy as something that can be “hacked,” gamifying the experience of building closeness and promising a certainty that rarely maps onto the way that lives actually unfold. It is a tempting fallacy; app-collected data formulated into a sleek online graph can feel more legitimate than the little feeling in your gut. The idea that market-driven technologies always know best is a dangerous one because it privileges only the metrics that are measurable by these technologies.

Collee, L. (2022, February 14). Silent partner. Real Life Magazine. https://reallifemag.com/silent-partner/

When the sensation of being touched on the arm is elicited by and logged on an app that will later sell that data for profit, it doesn’t only lose its eroticism; it also loses its sacredness (Walter Benjamin might say it loses its aura). Actually changing our love practices will never be compatible with the needs of the market. If love is a threat to oppression and domination, then love, ultimately, is a threat to capitalism. It is no wonder, then, that tech has such an interest in it.