A port city must trust that which approaches. Its purpose is to attract ships so that goods may move between cities and nations with ease. Such an open approach is, of course, also open to exploitation.Criminal elements will look to use legitimate trade routes to hide in plain sight while, probably best illustrated by the Black Death, they can also bring disease. Over the centuries, ports have improved considerably at ensuring free movement of what they wish to attract while limiting potential threats.Systems were developed to ensure openness could remain, with risk being reduced considerably. Online dating is undergoing a similar evolution.Dating apps were revolutionary when they first arrived. Prior to the likes of Tinder entering the arena, internet dating was looked down upon and, as a process, immensely clunky.The ease of use led to apps scaling quickly, with multiple niches being catered to. Bumble and Hinge, for example, offered fundamentally the same service as Tinder but with different methods of interaction. Yet with that scale came the potential for abuse. The most obvious was users often being quite nasty to their matches online but the problems were compounded by scammers, either financial or data, as well as catfishing.This first generation of dating apps offered abundance. There were always more people to see and more potential matches to meet. The positive aspects were substantial.Those who may be shy about approaching someone in person or living in a small village could reach a much wider potential dating pool online. LGBTQ+ users could access specialist apps while older users or those with niche interests could filter to meet those of a similar mind.What was missing was your pal in the pub or cafe to tell you to hold your horses for a minute. That has allowed all of the negative elements to prosper, blending in among people legitimately looking for love. In the artificial intelligence era, it has become even easier for scammers to roam freely.Take down one fake account and, as the large systems are currently built, it’s too easy for another to replace it.That creates a trust issue for users. Even the most naive person signing up to a dating app knows the risks of fake profiles. Yet even the best-trained eyes have trouble spotting scammers as they become increasingly sophisticated.The market has evolved to meet these challenges. Cherry Dating has been developed with a focus on being unappealing to scammers, using a compatibility questionnaire for users to reduce endless browsing. The BBC recently profiled that business along with Geek Meet Club, which is heavily event based to reduce the beneficial aspects to scammers.These challenger services also recognise the reality when it comes to battling scammers. There is no blunt way of stopping them outright for all users.Verification tools have been rolled out by many of the large apps, using selfies or government IDs to prove the user is legitimate. This carries with it questions around user privacy while also being a far from bulletproof way of keeping out nefarious actors.The privacy element is particularly important in the LGBTQ+ community where privacy is very important to user safety. That’s why apps like MeetMarket are developing a following as the decentralised privacy model, essentially verifying users are real without storing their data, are developing a following.Across this new wave of apps, there is a common thread of trying to address end user needs that have become apparent since dating apps went mainstream. These centre on security and privacy.There are already enough ways a normal date can go wrong that users are increasingly less willing to tolerate dating apps that don’t meet their needs.The bar has got higher. Online dating is almost as old as the internet but swipe culture, for want of a better way of putting it, has been mainstream for less than 15 years.Engagement was a volume game, the more of it the greater the revenue. Along the way, there was a misunderstanding of the challenges that come with scaling. As competition grew and, more importantly, consumer apps outside of dating improved the overall experience, the tolerance level of the market changed.Dating app users want the levels of customisation and security they find in dining, travel, and even banking apps. It’s a learning process for the sector, although one its major players should learn to adapt to quickly. Users want the ease that came with them when they first hit the mainstream coupled with increased security and reliability.It’s not enough to sell abundance any more. The dating apps that survive will do that while reducing risks for users.