Hi Everyone. This is Take Off. We're like a hidden Easter egg in your favorite video game - surprising, delightful, and adding an extra layer of fun to your tech news consumption.

Here's what we're serving up today:

• Love is Getting Expensive 💘 

• The Tropical Island with an AI Treasure 💰

• Asteroids ☄️

• Trending Tools ⚒️ 

Love is Getting Expensive 💘 

The days of venture-capital subsidized swiping are over and finding love is becoming more and more expensive. 

As online dating grows, companies have resisted the urge to introduce advertising as a revenue stream and have instead layered in subscription models with premium features. 

Money Can Buy You Love

Remember the last time you found love for cheap on these apps?

Yeah, neither do we.

1. Want more swipes? Pay up.

2. Want to find love in another city? Pay up.

Match Group - owner of Tinder and Hinge has a dwindling user base. And with user growth slowing down, Match has had to mine the romantic hopefuls still on its app more than ever. 

Despite Match Group’s user base declining for the past 4 consecutive quarters, their overall revenue has risen to $3.3B in 2023 as it has made each remaining lonely heart count for more.

It’ll All End in (Expensive) Tiers

Tinder, Hinge and the likes are now at a different stage in their startup life. Gone are its frat party days where they had the cash incinerator ON for acquiring more users at any costs.

It’s now in its get a job and settle phase where cash is king and the bottomline matters more. 

Gary Swidler - Match Group’s CFO puts it eloquently:

“We’re not focused on a specific key performance indicator, whether it’s payers or revenue per payer . . . we want to maximize overall revenue.”

To squeeze more juice out of its current users, the company is launching more premium plans.

1. Hinge has a $50/mo subscription for serious daters.

2. Tinder has a $499/mo plan called Tinder Select - available to just 1% of the app’s users.

3. The League - acquired by Match Group, has a $999/week VIP membership. 

How much would you pay for finding love? Let us know by replying to this email.

The Tropical Island with an AI Treasure 💰

Picture a tiny island in the Caribbean. Palm trees, sandy beaches, and... an AI Boom? Yep, you read that right!

The Caribbean’s little slice of paradise, Anguilla, is making BIG money. Not from mojitos or snorkeling tours, but from a simple internet domain.

The country has been assigned the “ai” code by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

Turns out, when you’re in charge of handing out website names ending in “.ai” in 2023, tech giants and flashy startups will toss a lot of dollars your way!

Anguilla's ".ai" domain management revealed registrations have DOUBLED in just a year.

All thanks to the boom in AI tech, and an unexpected helper - OpenAI's ChatGPT. Apparently, ever since ChatGPT made its dramatic entrance to the digital stage, the AI hype train's been full steam ahead.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and more giants are hopping aboard the ".ai" express. It’s like the dot-com boom of the '90s, but with a lot more beach vibes!

Anguilla brought in $7.4 million from .ai domain registrations in 2021, according to public records. It was previously estimated it would receive $8.3 million from domain registrations in 2023.

Now it’s estimated that Anguilla will bring in between $25 million and $30 million this year.

That’s A LOT of piña coladas. Or, more accurately, it's about 10% of the island's GDP!

Say What!

In a world where everyone's jostling for the perfect domain, Anguilla’s sitting pretty on a digital goldmine they didn’t even know they had!

Who knew that a country’s most lucrative export could be a couple of letters?

☄️ Asteroids ☄️

Getaround trims 30% of its NA workforce to fast-track profitability, saving $7M annually after a $1M restructuring hit. 🚗💸

FCC brands AI-voice robocalls illegal, aiming to curb election-time scams. Not a new law, but a clarification under existing rules. 🤖📵

Windows 11 gets geeky with built-in sudo command, a Linux favorite for running elevated privileges. Being tested for developer ease, it offers a familiar way to elevate commands. 🖥️🔑

⚒️ Trending Tools ⚒️

📹️ Rizzle - No Edit Video Creation

🔥 Friendly Fire - Smarter assignment and notification system for code reviews

🖼️ Capitol AI - AI content creation blending storytelling & research

⚡️ Zap - Craft free cover letters instantly, tailored to your resume

📰 Recommended Reading 📰

AI Jane: Artificial intelligence investment journalist building an easy to read ai investing email newsletter. Get smarter about investing in ai in 5 minutes.

The Aurorean: This newsletter scours 100+ sources so you don’t have to. The Aurorean is your guide to discover the essential news, research, beauty and humor in science every week.

The EV Universe: Keep up with the electric vehicle industry.

That’s it from us today folks! If you liked what today’s edition, here’s a message from our loving and hard-working team below:

“ We all crave the essentials in life - food 🥑🍕, shelter 🏠, and clothing 👕🩳- and we're no exception! Our must-haves? An ever-growing squad of adoring subscribers like you and for more of those lovely subs, we're counting on you to spread the word! So, blast that newsletter across the universe! ”