There were a couple guys two or three profiles into the xtra range that I was interested in talking to so I did the admittedly kinda shitty thing of blocking people I wasn’t interested in to free up space in the grid so they’d move up into the free zone. I noticed they hadn’t moved but other profiles I hadn’t seen before had moved up instead. I then went on a spree, blocking a dozen or so profiles only to find, again, that they hadn’t moved or had moved even farther away.

My assumption is Grindr stacks a handful of highly viewed profiles right outside your grasp as a free user in order to get you to cave and use the (very overpriced) paid version.Maybe I’m crazy. But with the way the app has moved feature after feature behind a paywall, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a technique used as well.