Why is Meta shutting ‘Tuned’, the private messaging app for couples?

Couples looking to hook up with each other on Meta’s Tuned app have a reason to be disappointed. Developed by Meta’s New Product Experimentation Team, the couple-oriented app is pushing down its services as ‘it’s not sticking’. The users have received a warning urging them to download their data before September 19 when the app will discontinue to function, The Verge reported.

The social media platform has not stated the reason behind closure. Jessyka Faison, a New Product Experimentation (NPE) spokesperson, in a statement said, “In the spirit of experimentation and similarly to previous apps, we try a lot of things, learn, and if our tests aren’t sticking, shut it down”.

Meta’s (then Facebook’s) NPE Team introduced Tuned in April 2020 when COVID-19 was at its peak in many countries. There was a need for couples living apart to have a reliable exclusive zone. “Tuned helps keep your relationship’s artifacts between just the two of you”, says the private messaging app’s website. It became a niche product for the couples to share feelings, exchange notes,photos and videos, play games, and stream music of their choice in sync. Launching the app, NPE said that its aim is to protect private space. A space where ‘you can be as mushy, quirky, and silly as you are together in person, even when you’re apart’. It came with password protection, unique invite codes, and privacy filters, which supported users to blur images.

Now that COVID-19 regulations have been relaxed in most of the world, fewer couples see the need to use the app. However, this is not the first instance when a project of NPE has ended abruptly. Meta is routinely closing the projects which cannot secure traction among the users.