[HN Gopher] The dating app paradox
___________________________________________________________________
The dating app paradox
Author : zwieback
Score : 98 points
Date : 2024-02-13 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| pgsandstrom wrote:
| I have a somewhat unrealistic dream that someday dating apps will
| be viewed the same way as roads: Essential infrastructure that
| needs to be handled by the public. A government developed dating
| app whose only goal is to help people find healthy relationships.
| All my american friends balk at this. But as a swede, I dont
| think it is completely impossible.
|
| The completely impossible dream would be that we as a society
| stopped using dating apps and just met away from the keyboard
| instead.
| quickslowdown wrote:
| I think it's less insane to trust the Swedish government to
| implement something like this responsibily than the US
| government. As a US citizen, absolutely no thank you to a
| government dating app, it's too ripe with temptation for them
| to be overreaching and irresponsible with the data they
| collect.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Where's the conspiracy theories that it would be pairing
| families and connections more than personalities?
| runamuck wrote:
| See my comment above.
| dotcoma wrote:
| I own NSAdates.com -- any takers? ;)
| suoduandao3 wrote:
| no such agency or no strings attached? ;)
| dotcoma wrote:
| Good one(s)!
| qup wrote:
| This is the ultimate business. You don't have to even host
| profiles, these guys can "background check" each other.
|
| It'll just be a just of names.
|
| Err...aliases.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > All my american friends balk at this. But as a swede, I dont
| think it is completely impossible.
|
| (as an American, balking at this): The American government is
| too irresponsible and corrupt to ever handle something like
| this -- it would get abused so quickly, and thus, no regular
| person would trust it.
|
| Having a single dating app/profile as a free public service is
| a good idea _in theory_ , but the pre-requisite of having a
| "functioning, selfless, responsible government, invested only
| in the public good" is just not a thing we're gonna get here.
| alistairSH wrote:
| And yet the government mostly does what we ask of it. USPS
| gets mail to the most remote locations for the price of a
| stamp. State and the military both protect our interests
| overseas (for better or worse). Healthcare.gov works pretty
| well (after that rocky rollout).
|
| It's far from perfect, but I don't feel like it's any more
| dysfunctional than any other western democracy.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| It's less dysfunctional than most organizations 1/10th its
| size.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| having worked at, or consulted at, several F500 orgs... I
| believe it.
|
| most could be politely described as "basket cases" or
| "cluster hugs" (hugs being the operative word). but they
| had so much inertia and so many assets that were
| effective on ground they couldn't be stopped.
|
| anything outside of core business drivers were a mess,
| but they could still make in rain in their core
| competencies.
|
| the level of corruption was also shocking. CTOs packing
| the PMO and Procurement teams to approve contracts,
| including 400k consulting fees to a company, only a few
| months old, and owned 100% by the CTOs wife. Sales
| Engineers offering "acquisition fees" for going with
| their SaaS offering. People fighting to get to be the
| gatekeepers for new RFPs so they could milk the
| baksheesh.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> And yet the government mostly does what we ask of it._
|
| That's the problem, though. What we ask of a dating app is
| roughly _" Give me access to partners that are 'out of my
| league'."_ It might work for some people sometimes, but
| it's not satisfiable in any meaningful way.
|
| It's like asking the government to "Make me rich" -
| something we do ask of the government! It does what it can,
| giving some people the opportunity to become rich
| sometimes, but it's not meaningfully satisfiable either.
| And that is where the ideas of corruption and
| irresponsibility come into play. "He got rich. I didn't.
| The government must favor him!"
|
| Few want a dating app for "healthy relationships". One only
| has to step outside in a reasonably populous area to find
| all kinds of healthy relationship opportunities staring
| them right in the face. But that's not what people,
| generally speaking, are looking for.
| whstl wrote:
| _> What we ask of a dating app is roughly "Give me
| access to partners that are 'out of my league'."_
|
| I don't really believe this is what we ask of apps.
|
| It is however what that the current apps promise us.
|
| If I install one of those apps, I need to swipe a lot of
| people to see an average woman. If I were single, I would
| probably be ok with the first 50 that show up if they
| weren't bots or onlyfans bait.
| randomdata wrote:
| Apps only get used if they deliver what people want. Apps
| promise that because that's what people want. (There are
| always exceptions)
|
| _> I need to swipe a lot of people to see an average
| woman._
|
| Right. If you were after an average woman (and an average
| woman was after you, we'll say someone also average),
| there would be no value proposition in swiping endlessly
| to find each other. You could both just step outside.
| There are average people abound.
|
| But the likelihood is that at least one of you, if not
| both, seek someone who is more than average. A connection
| isn't being made outside because either one or both
| parties is saying, implicitly or explicitly, "No thanks."
|
| And fair enough. If you think you can have something that
| you perceive as being better, why wouldn't you try to go
| for it? (Exceptions notwithstanding)
| mattmaroon wrote:
| That's just marketing by politicians trying to get elected.
| "Our government sucks, pick me and I'll fix it" has been
| every politicians message since Reagan. It isn't real.
|
| For an organization that size, it functions incredibly well
| in most respects. Nobody would claim it to be perfect (and
| you're probably right that nobody would trust it even if it
| were, because so many have accepted that marketing) but it
| could handle simple tasks like a dating app.
|
| It maybe shouldn't. But I don't think corruption is or in
| this case would be a real issue.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _It maybe shouldn't. But I don't think corruption is or in
| this case would be a real issue._
|
| I'd be more concerned about aligned incentives. A (modern,
| democratic) government exists to help maximize the social
| welfare of the governed. Is there enough societal gain to
| be had by entrusting mate-matching to the government? And
| are those gains in sync with the goals of the individuals?
|
| Fictional example: In a politically polarized society,
| there might be a benefit to matching extremists with either
| moderates or extremists from the other end of the political
| spectrum.
|
| Another: In order to bring economic balance, the government
| might decide to match the wealthy with the working class.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well, a lot of people are concerned about the low birth
| rate, and a good online dating app might be helpful. And
| a not-for-profit model might actually be the best way to
| accomplish that.
|
| I am neither sure that the common claim of why online
| dating is broken is true, nor that a government-run app
| is a good idea. Im just sure the "our government is
| incompetent and corrupt" argument is drastically
| oversubscribed to.
|
| You know what government is 100 times as corrupt and
| incompetent as ours? Cuba. And they make some of the
| finest cigars and rum in the world. Surely ours could
| come up with something better than Tinder.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I get the impression the birth rate is a function of
| cost, not opportunity.
|
| Sample bias ahead: My friends are mostly married. Those
| that have zero or one child did so because of the cost
| (both in real dollars, opportunity cost, and general
| pain-in-the-ass of raising children in the US today), not
| the inability to find a suitable mate.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well sure, it's not a total solution by any means, but
| there are people (including myself) who want kids but
| never had them because they didn't find the right person
| with which to do so.
|
| One only needs to increase the birth rate by about 25% to
| get back to population growth, so good online dating
| could probably make a meaningful impact. I am sure things
| like free health care and child care would be much better
| but they'd also be much more expensive, a decent online
| dating app could easily be at least budget neutral.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Would a single government (for example USA) operating such
| service be better on average than a single megacorp (for
| example Match.com)? I think corporate overreach in the
| democracy is way bigger than government overreach. At least
| in such simple and inconsequential case.
| whstl wrote:
| The problem with Match.com seems to be the fact they do too
| much (algorithms).
|
| Something non-profit would be able to be better just by
| having less cash...
|
| The spam problem might be too much, sure, but that also
| happens in the big apps, so...
| adrianN wrote:
| China might implement something like this. The opportunities
| for subtle eugenics with such an app...
| runamuck wrote:
| The Government could also match people based on a political
| agenda. I don't know why they would do that, but the idea
| fascinates me. Any creative types want to spin this into a
| "Black Mirror" script?
| Yizahi wrote:
| Match the similar view or opposite views? :)
| runamuck wrote:
| Good point. So, if the "Team Edward" party wants to dilute
| the "Team Jacob" party, they could match "Team Jacob" with
| attractive "Team Edward" companions who will raise their
| kids "Team Edward."
| commandlinefan wrote:
| And every pretty girl _somehow_ ends up matching with an
| employee of governmentdatingservice.com.
| essenddotnet wrote:
| Given their precipitous fall in TFR, certain Japanese
| prefectures have actually started taking this approach, most
| notably Tokyo [1]. I don't think your dream is _all that_
| unrealistic
|
| [1] https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/tokyo-
| gov...
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Haha this sounds like the plot for a dystopian futuristic
| government where based on data they automatically select the
| right mate for you.
|
| But joking aside. Not everything should be solved by the
| government, dating is supposed to be messy, unpredictable and a
| bit dangerous.
|
| We are humans not machines.
| tivert wrote:
| > I have a somewhat unrealistic dream that someday dating apps
| will be viewed the same way as roads: Essential infrastructure
| that needs to be handled by the public.
|
| Honestly, if the government gets involved, I hope it just kills
| the whole category with fire and bans them all, so we can stop
| with this atomized, app-mediated bullshit. Match Group's
| shareholders will be very sad, and I will be happy to play them
| a tune on the world's smallest violin.
|
| But capitalism doesn't optimize for good outcomes, it optimizes
| for the shittiest thing that can be monetized that people will
| just barely tolerate. It also will use the power of propaganda
| to drown out and destroy any non-market competitors, so we feel
| we have to use that shitty thing.
| sevagh wrote:
| Government arranged marriages.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > A government developed dating app
|
| And there it is! I think I have never ever seen an article
| posted on HN without somebody in the comment advocating for a
| government takeover. Even for dating apps now! If you examine
| official policy of the Soviet Union, not even Lenin was _that_
| communist.
|
| Tomorrow's article on HN: "How to make my three year old eat
| his vegetables?" In the comments: "The government should
| mandate that he eats his vegetables!"
| randomdata wrote:
| The government here maintains a job database, which is
| basically the same thing. In practice, people still go to the
| for-profit job sites. Unless other dating apps are outlawed,
| it's unlikely the government brings a value proposition to see
| users use it over the alternatives.
|
| _> whose only goal is to help people find healthy
| relationships._
|
| Especially if this is what is designed around. I expect you
| will find that most people using dating apps aren't looking for
| healthy relationships - they could have found hundreds of those
| just walking down the street - but are trying to find something
| else.
| sumuyuda wrote:
| There are other options to private capitalism than the
| government. Could be a non-profit/NGO/worker owned collective.
| Maybe these types on organizations could provide a better
| product/experience, as they aren't orientated around maximizing
| the profit.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I've seriously considered starting a non-profit that runs a
| site that works like one of the pre- match.com acquisition
| dating sites. I suspect 99% of costs will be combating spam
| profiles, which really isn't how I want to spend my time
| though.
| almatabata wrote:
| Before we go this route I would like to see what real
| competition looks like. They should break up the Match group
| and force those dating apps to actually really compete for
| users. I would love to know if new apps would maintain these
| tactics if they remain outside the Match group.
| jitl wrote:
| Quote from the article:
|
| > Call it the dating app paradox: dating apps are supposed to be
| matching lovebirds together, but once they do, the lovebirds fly
| away -- and take their money with them.
|
| I wonder if Feeld, Bloom, etc in the ethical non monogamy /
| polyamorous dating landscape will escape "enshittification"
| because their happiest users (who find good matches) stick around
| looking for more friends.
| bigjimmyjohnson wrote:
| The idea is solid.
|
| I meet most of my partners in real life just out and about, and
| only used online apps for very specific kinky stuff (which has
| caused me to get banned from regular dating apps lol). I still
| lament the loss of craigslist, so I installed Feeld.
|
| However, Feeld is fucking terrible. One of the worst apps I've
| ever used in my life.
|
| The design is good in theory, you can swipe through profiles
| without having to make a decision, then go back and say yes or
| no to partners at your leisure. You can list pretty much
| whatever you want in your profile as long as you keep the
| public pictures PG13 to keep the app store gods happy. You can
| pay for more matches or to send pings (extra notifications that
| people can see without matching you), or pay a fee to see
| everyone who has ever matched with you. The business model is
| super straightforward, no deception there.
|
| But it is honestly the buggiest app I have ever used in my
| life. I would get a message notification and I would have to
| restart the app each time to view a message. I thought maybe it
| was just my cheap-ish Android phone, but I confirmed with my
| friend who uses a more expensive iPhone that the same thing
| happens for him. He could barely get it to work as well. We are
| both tech professionals.
|
| They also never seem to address key complaints in design. To
| keep it hacker news safe, let's say you are interested in
| spanking. You can list "spanking" in your interests area, but
| there is nothing to indicate if you want to spank someone else,
| be spanked, or both.
|
| I think they are clearly coasting on the lack of competition in
| the space, and after a major update it got even worse.
|
| I decided I would no longer use it because I don't want to meet
| people with such low quality standards for software, because
| what else might they have low standards for in life?
| derbOac wrote:
| That was sort of my reaction to the article too, like the
| assumption that "your users want to pair up such as to stop
| using your app" is an obviously incorrect assumption in many
| cases.
|
| It also occurred to me that there's also an obvious expansion,
| which is into couples relationship and sex
| coaching/therapy/tools. I did some data analysis work with an
| app company with a lot of parallels to dating apps, and they
| kind of went that way: they figured out the needs of their
| users after their initial app was "done" and then offered
| another app, or expanded app to cover their subsequent needs.
| They actually did this twice very successfully, by branching
| out after a major stage of user need, that was the focus of the
| existing app, had been reached.
|
| These dating companies could easily turn into relationship
| coaching or therapy or relationship tool apps. There's plenty
| of possibilities.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Yes dating apps have a fundamental contradiction and
| enshitification is inevitable. But what struck me the most was
| how amateurish this article was. Citing tiktok users. Overusing
| phrases. Poor pacing. Its another example of the enshitification
| of journalism.
| Michelangelo11 wrote:
| I agree -- plus, the author used a smiley as part of a sentence
| at one point. And this is NPR, no less.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Where do you think some of those colleague kids end up?
|
| But also let's no get too hung up on this. I'm sure your
| grandparents/parents generation cannot understand why don't
| you wear a suit to work.
| ronald_raygun wrote:
| Two points on this.
|
| 1. I'd say about half my romantic partners have come from apps,
| and the other half from in person (meeting at parties, through
| friends, etc). TBH I'm not sure one has been consistently better
| than another. Sure meeting someone in person for five minutes
| tells you a lot about potential compatibility in ways that
| texting via app doesn't. However, how someone constructs their
| data profile tells you a lot about how they see themselves, which
| you might not get from meeting someone casually. Empirically, I
| wouldn't say the outcomes from one source have been consistently
| better.
|
| 2. I really don't think 'enshittification' is unique to dating
| apps. Look at the internet. Like, recipe sites now all tell you
| about how special this soup was to the author's grandma and how
| treasured her childhood memories are of it ... because you spend
| more time on the site and they can show you more ads. More search
| results are just low quality SEOd blogs and what not. Tons of
| software is moving to a service model, because they can get sweet
| MRR from you, and make more money in the long run. Food, social
| media, games, etc are all getting engineered to become more
| addicting. Like this is neo-liberalism.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Algos deciding what i read. Algos deciding what i watch Algos
| deciding what i buy what news i see. What jobs i apply to. If i
| get hired. Who i date.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| The "enshitification" of dating apps is long overdue, in fact I'd
| say it's one of the easiest to predict.
|
| "Enshitification" almost follows a formula: take any app that
| does not have a direct path to revenue, add investor cash, watch
| the enshitification as the apps founders try to please investors.
| Dating apps here have an additional issue which is you are
| guaranteed to have users "fall off", either a user finds someone
| and drops off or the user get frustrated and drops off, one of
| these outcomes is basically guaranteed for a dating app.
|
| And this is just my opinion but I feel like unlike other apps,
| users are more resistant to paying for dating apps because it
| makes you look like a looser and dating is is inherently viewed
| as something that should be "free" (at least the meeting aspect)
|
| I guess my question is what did investors really expect?
| Madmallard wrote:
| Dating apps for most people seem like a complete waste of time
| and actually detrimental to your life. There are exceptions, of
| course, like people much too busy.
|
| As a male, it seems guaranteed (probably due to supply vs demand
| disparity?) that you will only have matches that are
| significantly less attractive than you. I think most people will
| consider me average in looks. I don't think I've ever matched
| with a girl that was average on online dating in the 5 years I
| tried it. I also got professional photo help and put a lot of
| effort into it etc. As another commenter mentioned, more than
| half the women I met up with also had an STI.
|
| There has been some research done on the attraction thing, and it
| has been shown that if women don't know you, they are exceedingly
| likely to rate men as mostly ugly. If they do know you, however,
| their ratings are more of a bell curve. So if you want the most
| attractive possible match (for you), and have the best chance at
| someone you have the most chemistry with, I think you have to
| just meet a lot of women in person and get to know them first. It
| is unfortunate because people are seemingly less social nowadays?
| So it is kind of a problem that makes itself worse.
| badcppdev wrote:
| You matched with and met multiple women so the apps seem to be
| working as designed.
|
| You seem to have an idea of your attractiveness which doesn't
| match the measurably evidence and yet you discard that
| evidence. Why?
|
| I get the impression that attractiveness is very important to
| you. Ironically I think that might be a very unattractive
| trait.
| Madmallard wrote:
| Your reply is not particularly astute nor is it charitable.
|
| (1) Perhaps I have also dated not through online dating,
| where it completely aligns with what I'm saying?
|
| (2) Caring that someone is sexually appealing to you... a red
| flag?
|
| (3) Yes I would agree that shallowness is unattractive, as
| anyone would. However, bringing up a point specifically
| relevant to online dating apps and implying that it may be
| specifically relevant to online dating apps does not
| necessarily mean that is my entire mentality. If I met up
| with multiple women knowing I said what I said, perhaps it
| would not be such a logical leap to assume maybe that
| attractiveness does not matter to me as much as you seem to
| think it does?
| prepend wrote:
| I've found that it's not just the photos but the writing and
| content on profiles.
|
| It was surprising to me how many people had really poorly
| written profiles or just photos.
|
| I'm guessing I'm a 4-5 but have matched with really attractive,
| and more importantly, very smart, successful, and interesting
| people. At first I was surprised but women tell me that many
| people on dating apps put in little effort or just can't do
| basic things like carry a conversation beyond "hey" and "your
| [sic] beautiful."
|
| I find that the apps are useful for meeting lots of people in
| person and testing out chemistry. I'm not sure a better way to
| meet people IRL.
|
| I'm in my 40s and only have my own experience so YMMV.
|
| I'm curious how you knew half the women you met had an STI. Are
| you asking this?
| Madmallard wrote:
| I had a traumatic experience with it (ironic by context) not
| on online dating so yeah I have asked all women ever since.
| It is definitely tricky and requires tactfulness to talk
| about this early on.
| Spastche wrote:
| OkCupid used to have a bunch of blog posts with numbers about
| how much a difference a good profile and good pictures make,
| but I think they took them down when Match bought them out. I
| haven't been on any dating sites in a few years but the
| amount of people with garbage profiles and bad pictures
| (lighting / posture being the biggest and easiest issues to
| fix) is crazy high.
| breather wrote:
| OkCupid used to be the best because they actually tried to
| match you up on common interests and relevant dating
| questions. Last I heard that had been ripped out and it was
| just another tinder clone emphasizing photos and swiping.
| Should be a crime to ruin an app that useful.
| Spastche wrote:
| last time I was on it, the questions had been de-
| emphasized and it seemed more like a tinder clone.
| hopefully a better version of it comes along someday,
| it's a valid idea (matches based on quizzes)
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| theyre still on archive.org somewhere if you're willing to
| dig for them. seem em posted here a few times
| breather wrote:
| > As a male, it seems guaranteed (probably due to supply vs
| demand disparity?) that you will only have matches that are
| significantly less attractive than you.
|
| This seems to wildly vary across apps, but that's not generally
| been my experience. I've also found that folks can have a very
| different conception of attractiveness than their prospective
| partners.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Your points are all valid, but is it really a waste of time and
| detrimental? If your ultimate goal is to meet someone long
| term, what is a better use of your time? Even if your chances
| are slim, and several dates in a row fail, you just need one to
| succeed.
| garciasn wrote:
| Originally responding to a flagged comment that stated you were
| weak for not talking to people in person:
|
| You're not wrong, but the in-person dating pool is small and the
| stakes are high. I am very recently divorced, dating single for
| the first time in nearly 25 years after finding my wife stole
| $300K from the family and had been carrying on an affair for 18
| months while I thought our finances and love were at an all time
| high.
|
| Dating apps at 45 are a literal fucking cesspool. Like any online
| community, there are norms and nuances which are incredibly
| difficult to come up to speed on and, frankly, are miserable to
| navigate.
|
| That said, finding those who are open to in-person dating
| interactions is almost impossible these days. We're missing The
| Third Place and folks have been trained to use apps to date and
| thus are unlikely to engage in person.
|
| That said, I was super fortunate to find a beautiful single woman
| in my apartment building who was not only receptive but has been
| a really great friend and person to "date" in the traditional
| sense as I knew it 25 years ago.
|
| But, I was incredibly fortunate and I'm not sure it'll work long
| term; putting me right back into the dating apps potentially.
| Where not wanting to parent additional kids (my own or someone
| else's), eventual marriage, or even something super serious or
| super casual is attractive to me. I am not in a place where sex
| after 1 to 3 dates is something I desire. Nor am I interested in
| having super deep emotional conversations or thoughts about some
| sort of future together before I meet someone.
|
| That said, to poo poo dating apps is a Luddite view of the world.
| They do work and people are using them. We have regressed as a
| social society in the last 25 years and these apps offer a wide
| dating pool for people to explore without The Third Place or the
| uncomfortable experience of navigating these waters in person and
| potentially the offensive and negative experiences in-person
| interactions can create.
|
| Best of luck to everyone out there. I hope you find what you're
| looking for and the pains and anxiety that come from either
| method.
| miroljub wrote:
| For anyone like me, wondering what a Third Place is:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > after finding my wife stole $300K from the family and had
| been carrying on an affair for 18 months while I thought our
| finances and love were at an all time high
|
| Yikes. Were there, in retrospect, signs that you missed?
| garciasn wrote:
| Everything. Absolutely everything. When you work hard to
| always assume the best of the love of your life, it's almost
| impossible not to miss each and every sign because you
| dismiss them with prejudice.
| glimshe wrote:
| Any examples you would be comfortable sharing (ok to change
| the low level details of the situation)?
| garciasn wrote:
| I had no access to any financial account, ever. Once I
| gained access, after the fact, there were nearly $16K in
| cash advances against a credit card I didn't even know I
| had.
|
| Purchased all new dresses.
|
| Purchased workout equipment (rarely, if ever used).
|
| Purchased sex toys and sex-related clothing I never saw
| used.
|
| 5 new credit cards in her name.
|
| Pieces of paper with divorce related info I assumed were
| for a friend of her's, certainly not for us.
|
| Would leave for 4+ hours a day, many times a week, to go
| shopping but never came back with anything.
|
| Would leave our vacation home once a week to do laundry
| and get mail when she could have done it at a laundromat
| or had the mail held.
| prepend wrote:
| > Dating apps at 45 are a literal fucking cesspool.
|
| Funny I'm in almost the same situation and have found dating
| apps really helpful. I've been using them for a few months and
| it's like a firehose of dates. It's surprising because they get
| a bad rap, but I think I could go on a date every night if I
| wanted to.
|
| I haven't found a new partner and am just a few months in but
| have met nice people and relationships.
|
| As an introvert I like being able to better filter and identify
| people who are potentially compatible.
|
| I'm a man in a 10M metro area looking for long term
| relationships just using Hinge and avoiding hook up culture. So
| it's hard to compare, but so different from 25 years ago when I
| was last dating.
| garciasn wrote:
| I think the 10M metro area helps your case, many folks don't
| have such a wide dating pool to pull from on the apps. Also,
| it depends on the culture of the area that you reside within.
| Here, in Minneapolis, folks are tight lipped, tight knit, and
| keep everything close to the chest, but they continue to hold
| some of those dating app nuances in high regard.
|
| I'm really happy that, for you, it works. I also had a steady
| stream of dates, but they were folks I was not compatible
| with in any stretch of the imagination and the stress and
| anxiety that comes with juggling many different
| conversations, relationships, dates, etc, just isn't
| something I want to deal with. I want to spend my time
| investing in a small group of humans, not investing 1/100th
| of my available emotional and mental bandwidth on a variety
| of them, only to find myself moving on to the next one--time
| and time again.
|
| TL;DR: 100 first dates, sometimes multiple times in a week is
| just exhausting for me and I prefer a world where I can be
| me, without the stresses associated with playing some game I
| don't understand.
| atq2119 wrote:
| That's a choice you make, though, isn't it? If you get that
| many matches, be more selective. Everybody wins that way.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| What up Minneapolis!
|
| Yes, dating is hard here. Something is off about the way
| people are built here. But we have nice parks and food.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Same for me, in my 40s, living in London. Started on the
| dating apps last October, and had so many dating
| opportunities I had to slow down. And now I've found an
| amazing woman. As a life long awkward geek, I wish it had
| been this easy in my 20s.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> They do work and people are using them._
|
| People use them out of desperation/necessity, not because they
| work at actually helping you find a partner or whatever it is
| you're looking. They work at keeping you hooked on the
| platform, hoping in vain you'll eventually find someone if you
| stick there long enough.
|
| To quote someone else: There's this old man playing a crooked
| game every day and loosing his money so a youngster approaches
| him saying "don't you know this game is crooked old man, why
| are you still playing it?", to which the old man replies "I
| know it's crooked, but it's the only game in town".
|
| The crooked game is the dating apps. For many people, it's the
| only option of dating and meeting new people outside their
| social circles, which is why they're used even if most people
| hate them, not because they're good.
| dkekenflxlf wrote:
| >> The crooked game is the dating apps. For many people, it's
| the only option of dating and meeting new people outside
| their social circles, which is why they're used even if most
| people hate them, not because they're good. <<
|
| this!!
| ravenstine wrote:
| You're not wrong, but I believe there are things people can do
| to find better "fishing holes" if they think outside the box.
|
| I grew up in Los Angeles and have never actually felt at home
| here. Should it be any surprise that my experience dating here
| has been poor? I'm certainly not a hottie, but I am pretty sure
| I'm not ugly, either. Given all the examples of male
| attractiveness I've seen, I think I'm a low 7 on the decile
| scale. Most women out here seem to only consider 5 - 7s "settle
| material", but most women aren't above a 7 either, so physical
| attractiveness doesn't universally explain struggles with
| dating, not that it isn't a big part of it.
|
| My hypothesis is that people underrate the difference in dating
| culture across cities and countries. I've been to enough cities
| and a few countries to realize that, actually, people aren't
| the same everywhere; cities all have different cultures with
| varying attitudes and levels of connection to reality. LA is
| fundamentally built on adults _playing pretend for a living_ ,
| so if you're a more analytically minded person, this is a poor
| place to be fishing for dates. A city built upon a different
| industry or values education may be a better place to find
| people you're compatible with.
|
| What I think most people don't think about is how the male-to-
| female ratio in a city may have an impact on the dating
| experience. I recently did an experiment where I used Census
| data to examine which cities had more males than females and
| which ones had the opposite, narrowing the field down to just
| single people (never married, divorced, or widowed) between 25
| and 34, and the results were quite interesting. While it's not
| super common for cities ever have superficially extreme
| imbalances, most major cities have significantly more single
| men in this cohort than single women.
|
| For instance, in Los Angeles, my query over the ACS5 data from
| the last Census shows that Los Angeles has a male-to-female
| ratio of 1.18; this means that there's 18% more men than women
| in that city. In a major city, that's a lot of active
| competition.
|
| Recently, I've been considering spending time in Boston because
| I already like that city and think it may be a better fit for
| me in the long run. In contrast to Los Angeles, Boston has a
| male-to-female singles 25-34 ratio of 1. Although it would be
| nice from a man's perspective for there to be more women than
| men, I think there's reason to believe that, for some men, they
| may suffer less competition in a city like that.
|
| If you are curious, reader, the only major cities in the United
| States that I found to have significantly more women than men
| are Rochester NY, Cincinnati OH, Richmond VA, and District Of
| Columbia (having the lowest ratio at 0.89). There's a handful
| of other cities with a ratio <1, but you have to really ask
| yourself whether you want to spend time in _Palmdale CA_ to
| find dates.
|
| I don't have the research on hand (I'll post it here if I find
| it), but I remember reading about how the sex ratio impacts the
| way that women approach dating; if they have an abundance of
| options, in the case of more males than females, women are
| likely to be more selective and use long-term dating strategy
| (possibly paralysis-by-analysis or playing the numbers game),
| whereas they are less selective and think in the shorter term
| when there are fewer men. This is likely true at least to some
| extent in the case of the reverse gender. I'm just speaking
| from my perspective as a guy and the knowledge I've gathered.
|
| Don't be like me and spend too many years fishing in the wrong
| hole. Find one with fewer rods already in it. _ba dum tssshhhh_
| almatabata wrote:
| There was a book that talked about those dynamics:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24693022-date-onomics
|
| It is not from a researcher but a journalist. He does cite
| research and uses real life examples.
|
| He gave examples where when the ratio was in the men's favor,
| they would not commit to marriage as easily. In contrast when
| the number was in the women's favor you would notice things
| like an increase in credit card debit I believe.
| michaelt wrote:
| If you're interested in this sort of thing, I can recommend
| creating an account on your dating app of choice with the
| opposite gender.
|
| The experiences are as different as night and day - and the
| different user groups have completely different requirements of
| the product.
|
| The article is interesting, but IMHO they've really missed the
| key asymmetries that make good dating apps so hard to build.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Better yet, do some experiments outside of just gender. Make an
| account for a dog. Or be a guy who's a total douchebag.
|
| _You may not like what you find._
|
| EDIT: Seems people here don't like what I have to say or think
| I'm kidding.
|
| I haven't done the dog experiment myself, though I've seen it
| done a few times by others. It's quite the realization when a
| dog gets more attention than you do as a human on a dating app.
| Yeah, it's different, but it may not feel that way if all you
| want is for just one person to not dismiss you that day.
|
| However, I _have_ done the experiment of pretending to be a
| stereotypical douchebag on dating apps, and that was especially
| enlightening. By douchebag, I mean that type of guy who shows
| his abs in mirror shots, wears a baseball cap sideways, and
| sends dick pics (I didn 't actually do that part, but I'm
| illustrating a character here). Turns out that if all you want
| to do is get laid by attractive young women, then this is the
| guy you want to be. Many women in my locality are looking
| specifically for a good time with him. Just show pics of you in
| front of a white pickup truck, type in all lowercase, say
| you've spent time in jail, and that all you care about is sex.
| hnthrowaway6543 wrote:
| > And that creates a problem for the sellers of used cars that
| are actually good. These sellers are like, "What the heck?! I
| KNOW my car isn't a lemon! It's worth way more than what you're
| willing to pay!" And so they refuse to sell their used car and
| exit the market. The result is a market where lemons become more
| prevalent.
|
| Lots of truth to this. These days, dating apps seem to be
| exclusively for the desperate, horny, and desperately horny; as
| the article says, the younger generation doesn't even use them.
|
| Even if you're just a "normal" person not in that top ~20% of
| attractiveness/desirability, and have no chance of matching with
| those top 20%, that top 20% still needs to use your app.
| Otherwise, everyone else using it starts thinking that the app is
| made for the undesirable. Nobody wants to think of themselves as
| undesirable! And everyone wants to swipe right on a 10/10 girl or
| guy and hope they somehow get lucky.
|
| When the only attractive people left on your platform are
| OnlyFans advertisement bots, your dating app is pretty much
| fucked, no matter how many genuine 6/10 romance-seekers you have.
| solatic wrote:
| It's only a paradox until you realize that dating apps would
| shoot themselves in the foot with such a user-hostile model,
| trashing their brand. Hanlon's Razor directs us to the simpler
| explanation, which is that 90% of people on dating markets stay
| on dating markets; for which there are many, many highly
| personalized reasons. No dating app can fix its users' mindsets.
|
| There are three rules on dating apps, and they haven't changed in
| the last couple of decades: be attractive, don't be unattractive,
| and inject humor. The fourth rule is to remember that if you want
| to be treated like a customer then make sure you pay for the
| product rather than being the product; the fifth rule is to have
| patience over things outside of your control.
| pc86 wrote:
| I found my wife on Hinge in a suburban-bordering-rural part of
| the country (so not a lot of people on the apps in absolute
| terms) right before its acquisition and actually had better
| success broadly speaking on Bumble. The trick was,
| unfortunately, to pay for it. Have super likes or whatever
| they're called. Pay for the membership to see people who like
| me without having to swipe. Pay to boost my profile so more
| people see it and potentially like it. The worst part (for me),
| actually spend time curating photos and writing thoughtful
| answers to things - the former being much more important than
| the latter. Even with all of this I'd hit nights where I had
| seemingly swiped one way or the other on every eligible
| bachelorette within 100 miles. Maybe I had.
|
| Unfortunately I don't have any reproducible or generalizable
| advice from meeting my wife. She was my only match on Hinge,
| neither of us paid for it, and we moved to phone conversation
| and dates within 48 hours.
| 015a wrote:
| I _really_ like this take, and I think it becomes extremely
| self-evident once you think about it for a bit, and talk with
| people who use dating apps IRL.
|
| "Dating apps are incentivized to keep people going on mediocre
| first dates" is such a tired take that would require such
| _incredible_ sophistication and secrecy to pull off, "we can't
| make the matches too shitty, but we also can't make them too
| good, damn it Jim that match was too high quality! now they'll
| stop paying!" its comic book villain stuff that cannot possibly
| explain why _all_ of these apps suck.
|
| "For which there are many highly personalized reasons" -> Look,
| _yes_ people are responsible for their own mindsets. But in the
| words of a recent tweet (I wish I could cite but I can 't find
| it) concerning learning comprehension tanking in K-12 students:
| Its Phones! Its just phones. Its obviously phones! You hear
| this crap like "well, its a highly complicated situation with
| many variables and possible explanations" Nope! Its literally
| just phones!
|
| Dating is hard, weird, and scary. Its one of the most
| vulnerable things humans do. We're putting kids on a dopamine
| treadmill from childhood, and we're surprised that, at best,
| we've got cohorts of individuals growing up who love the
| matching but stop when it gets any more difficult than a swipe?
| Terr_ wrote:
| > that would require such _incredible_ sophistication and
| secrecy to pull off
|
| No, there's no need for a strawman Snidely Whiplash, it can
| be done through regular management practices with plausible
| deniability.
|
| 1. Collect metrics around recurring revenue and "engagement".
| (With the software, not engagements between couples.)
|
| 2. Use _those_ metrics to choose what changes in the software
| and who gets promoted.
|
| Low quality matches is the default state, they don't have to
| deliberately engineer it. They can just let it happen, or not
| care when it happens as the result of some other change.
| autoexec wrote:
| > It's only a paradox until you realize that dating apps would
| shoot themselves in the foot with such a user-hostile model,
| trashing their brand.
|
| This is sarcasm right? What dating app has a stellar
| reputation? Which one hasn't been outright caught or isn't
| widely suspected of using fake profiles to string users along?
| Or hasn't failed to prevent obvious scammers/rapists? Or hasn't
| leaked/sold their customer's data?
|
| The idea that dating apps have a precious reputation that they
| must carefully maintain or no one would use their services is
| beyond ridiculous
| enragedcacti wrote:
| I don't doubt that many users are approaching dating apps
| suboptimally but I don't think its fair to completely throw out
| the idea that these companies are knowingly trading quality of
| service for profitability.
|
| Network effects are such a huge piece of the puzzle that can
| draw people to a service despite it being a bad experience (see
| FB marketplace), and app companies have gotten extremely good
| at finding the optimal amount of user hostility (see the vast
| majority of mobile games).
|
| Beyond that, Match can afford to be user hostile because they
| have proven able to consistently buy basically everyone in
| town. Who cares if Tinder gets a bad rap, there's a very good
| chance users go to another Match Group service and they can buy
| practically any non-Match service that springs up.
| trashface wrote:
| A couple years ago, post pandemic, I tried these apps for the
| first time in my life (mid forties), and I had the what is
| apparently the typical hetero male experience of no matches. It
| wasn't bad dates or ghosting or catfishing all that stuff you
| read about. Just no dates, no chats even. Gave up after a few
| months and deleted them, I doubt I'll ever go back on there.
|
| Its perhaps controversial, but I definitely didn't "lead with my
| wallet" on my profile. And maybe for an average guy that is the
| only viable strategy, but of course that is selecting for a
| particular type of relationship.
| nvarsj wrote:
| The way these apps work, you pretty much have to pay as a guy.
| It's like a club where women get in free. The algorithms will
| derank you very fast unless you're a 10/10 male, and you will
| basically get no matches from then on. Most guys who are
| successful on dating apps are paying for it.
| blendo wrote:
| For a straight male, you'll see a surprisingly large number of
| fake profiles. Anecdotally, women seem to report this too.
| (Reddit has MANY such posts!) So identity verification is a real
| problem.
|
| As an iPhone user, I'd seriously consider using a dating app that
| ONLY allowed you to "Sign in with Apple", in the belief that it's
| the "best" way to ensure a real human is behind the sign-in,
| more-so than email/pwd, or even Facebook or Google sign-ins.
|
| Except maybe ID.me as used by the IRS and the VA?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> As an iPhone user, I'd seriously consider using a dating app
| that ONLY allowed you to "Sign in with Apple",_
|
| This way you can also avoid the poor Android users and clear
| them off the gene pool. /s
| rwoerz wrote:
| No, with other dating apps around you just spawn a
| speciation.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| If I had a dollar for every "green bubble" comment I got when
| I started texting someone from a dating app, I'd almost be
| able to to buy an iPhone
| ijhuygft776 wrote:
| > This way you can also avoid the *smart* Android users and
| clear them off the gene pool.
| leach wrote:
| Dating apps by and far are quite useless. If you ever want to
| know how insidious they are, just download one, finish your
| profile, and swipe for 10 minutes a week.
|
| Since you are not an "active user" they will give you the most
| attractive people to swipe on. Every couple of days they will
| give you a "limited time" discount on gold or platinum or
| whatever. The push notifications are my favorite part, "you could
| be missing out on the love of your life!!!".
|
| Not to mention the interactions with the UI are littered with
| casino like visuals. The whole purpose of the app is to get you
| addicted and spending time and money on it.
|
| It's much easier to naturally meet people in real life through
| work/school. If you can't there, go hang out at coffee shops or
| bookstores or something and just hang. Strike up conversation
| with people, just live. You'll get rejected and some people will
| be rude but it's all real. You could also always pick up hobbies
| and meet people there. Just be social, don't spend time and money
| on these machines of misery.
| Qem wrote:
| > It's much easier to naturally meet people in real life
| through work/school.
|
| It was. Nowadays people including the office in their dating
| pool face a high risk of harassment claims.
| itronitron wrote:
| I think the mindset should be that whoever you initially
| meet, or hang out with, won't be a match but may potentially
| introduce you to a person with whom you could match. So all
| coworkers then are excluded from the dating pool, but are
| potential matchmakers.
| jstarfish wrote:
| I investigate these complaints for a living. Please don't
| date anybody you work with. We'll both be happier for it.
|
| The fun always starts after a breakup and the other party
| doesn't want to see you at work anymore. There is usually _no
| penalty_ for falsely reporting anyone to HR for harassment
| "in good faith," and there are likely anti-retaliation
| policies _protecting_ malicious claimants from punishment for
| "misrepresentation" of any situation. Your side of the story
| will be recorded for the sake of appearance, and ignored. The
| system is completely broken.
|
| If you're sure they're your soul mate, changing departments
| is not enough, leave now, on your own terms. You do not want
| a common HR department acting as a mediator for your domestic
| disputes. You're asking to be made unemployed and homeless.
| lazide wrote:
| It's not just work - it's any community venue that other
| party considers 'essential'.
| rowyourboat wrote:
| I'm always so confused by the advice to go to bookstores to
| meet people. What kind of bookstores do you guys go to where
| the customers talk with each other?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Go anywhere people congregate weekly at the same time for a
| year. You will accidentally community.
| Exoristos wrote:
| Being able to start a friendly conversation under
| circumstances where an average male might fail is a prime
| sign of date-ability. While humans are very complicated, the
| general animal rule that males must impress females still
| exists at some level in some form.
| janalsncm wrote:
| An actually good date is worth potentially hundreds of dollars.
| I'm surprised there isn't an app which meets this need. Yes there
| is "The League" but even that is just a more exclusive Tinder.
| No, make a matchmaker app for high paying customers that uses
| human curation. $500 for 3 dates.
| glimshe wrote:
| eHarmony, where I met my spouse, used to be like this in the
| 2000s. $249 for 3 months of access, they chose the dates for
| you (after filling out an extensive, 1-hour questionnaire) and
| you could NOT search. It was a digital version of a very old
| school, professional matchmaker. I remember getting an average
| of 1 match per week (no date guaranteed from a match, it just
| afforded you the _possibility_ of communication, both sides had
| to agree to it after reviewing the traditional writeup and
| pics).
| unsignedint wrote:
| After dedicating an hour to completing eHarmony's extensive
| questionnaire, I was unexpectedly informed that there were no
| matches available for me, resulting in my inability to join
| their service. While initially disheartening, I appreciate
| eHarmony's honesty and their decision not to charge me the
| $249 membership fee given the lack of potential matches. This
| transparency is commendable, although the experience
| ultimately led me to discontinue my pursuit of online dating
| altogether.
| sctb wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that; of course it would've been be
| disheartening! If you're interested in sharing, I'm curious
| if you speculated at the time why that might have been the
| case (e.g. where you live, unique interests, etc.), and how
| you went about things after that experience.
| dhosek wrote:
| There was such a service in Chicago in the 90s. I think it
| might have been more than $500 though (and that would have been
| in 1990 dollars). I don't remember if I saw the ads in the
| Chicago Tribune or the alt-weekly Chicago Reader.
|
| I'm not sure, though, that even though the good date being
| worth potentially hundreds of dollars would lead to most people
| being willing to spend those hundreds of dollars. When I was a
| young man, there was a lot of stigma about having met people
| through personals (the pre-app version of dating apps) or the
| early years of internet dating. I think probably the '00s was
| the peak period for social acceptability and quality of
| matches.
| thimp wrote:
| Careful now. A bad one cost me $500k after 20 years.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| 25k a year? cheaper than a boat
| thimp wrote:
| You're not the first person to tell me that.
| robocat wrote:
| But a friend earned $500k after 20 years.
|
| Average out both sides of the transaction.
| neaden wrote:
| The question here is, does a matchmaker actually have better
| results in terms of matching then a dating app or other
| methods? Historically they only really seem to work when the
| culture around them supports their use and people assume
| they're going to marry someone they don't know well rather then
| date for a few years.
| ben7799 wrote:
| This kind of thing has actually existed for a long time. They
| predated dating sites and had even worked off paper as far as I
| understand.
|
| The problem is they cost a lot more, and still had basically
| zero guarantee of any success. IIRC they were so expensive most
| single people would have trouble affording them.
|
| I met my wife on eHarmony back when it was relatively new. I
| had tried one of the non-computerized matching services at some
| point and it was like 4x what Match or eHarmony cost and it was
| a pretty poor service.
|
| I probably tried Match in 2000 for the first time? Had a lot of
| bad first dates on various sites between 2000-2005. Like 50+
| people I never went on a second date with?
|
| Back then tech wasn't cool. You could hit it off with someone
| and then they'd literally get up and leave when they found out
| your job.
|
| I also tried speed dating, that was popular for a while. It was
| like a meetup where you talked to different people for 10
| minutes each and then at the end checked off on a paper if you
| were interested in someone you met and if you matched with
| someone the organizer sent you each other's contact info.
|
| I ended up trying all this cause when I finished college I
| moved to a new place. I basically knew no one. And at my first
| job I was like 23 and there was not a single other person under
| 30 in the division, it was even hard to find people to hang out
| with as friends. Working as an engineer was very different for
| me then.
| sss111 wrote:
| do you have any advice for someone who's just finished
| college and moved to a new place, its really hard to find
| people to hang out as friends.
| ben7799 wrote:
| You want to look for some kind of social hobby that
| naturally attracts a wide range of people, both men and
| women, is in person, and makes you happy regardless of
| whether you're actually meeting people.
|
| Certain sports qualify. Volunteer groups can qualify. Some
| hobbies work.
|
| For sports today the rock climbing community is very
| inclusive and the sport naturally causes people to get to
| know each other since you can't climb with ropes in most
| places without pairing up with someone. The whole gym
| culture of rock climbing didn't really exist yet when I was
| in my early 20s.
| phlipski wrote:
| Married with 3 kids here. If was single today I'd be at
| the local rock gyms 24/7. I took my kids climbing a few
| weeks ago and I couldn't believe how many women were in
| that place. Roughly a 50/50 male/female ratio, and
| everyone is super fit. Yoga pants - _chefs kiss_. Easy to
| strike up conversations too when looking for help with a
| problem...
| lancesells wrote:
| Sports and any kind of group activities that interest you.
| bluGill wrote:
| Any activity that is small enough that they need more
| people, but still large enough.
|
| Be careful, males and females are in general attracted to
| different activities. (I don't know why). If you are a guy
| trying to meet girls (or vice versa) your first choice is
| probably bad. If you don't see someone who could be a match
| right away you are in the wrong activity. (this is before
| you meet them to learn if they are married or have have
| compatible personality)
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| Speed dating has actually made a bit of a comeback:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/speed-dating-online-apps-
| single...
|
| I highly recommend it to anyone looking and tired of apps.
|
| Even if you don't like the speed dating format, you end up in
| a bar filled with people you know are single and looking.
| spogbiper wrote:
| There are services like this. "It's Just Lunch" is one example.
| It costs more than $500 though.
| francisofascii wrote:
| I tend to agree it is worth a lot. So maybe we need people like
| recruiters who mask the identities but provide a bit of detail
| to do the matchmaking. I think of friends and acquaintances to
| be a good (or at least better than most) mediator of
| matchmaking, because they know people who might fit well with
| you. This would be an extension of that.
| presentation wrote:
| Don't write off the power of making a more exclusive Tinder. I
| wrote about it in a separate comment [1] but the nature of a
| dating app will be strongly determined by the barriers to entry
| in front of it. Just turns out that the barrier to entry that
| The League introduces is not one that may select for the type
| of people you are interested in.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39363021
| 65 wrote:
| I bet if you made dating apps paid upfront at a lower price than
| premium subscriptions (e.g. $10/month rather than $20/month on
| other apps), you'd still get a ton of users as people are willing
| to pay for a way to find love, and you'd get your much desired
| revenue. And you wouldn't have to deal as much with
| enshittification. The only other problem to solve is the 90/10
| rule - where 90% of the women are only interested in 10% of the
| men.
| dhosek wrote:
| I worked at eHarmony in 2009 and we had a monitor in the office
| which showed user complaints. Apparently, the business people
| had A/B tested and determined that the additional revenue from
| ads outweighed the annoyance that users experienced (I actually
| asked directly about this). The other thing was the large
| number of people who were frustrated by the low density of
| users in their geographical region. Spending a lot of time with
| user data as a developer was kind of depressing as a
| significant part of their user base was divorced people who
| were recovering from alcoholism or drug addiction.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Dating apps already have this problem, but a subscription
| really incentivizes the app to _never_ let you find the right
| person. Because if you do, they lose a subscriber.
| shimonabi wrote:
| I'll never install Tinder again.
|
| 6 years ago you could actually match with real local people that
| you even met before, now you just get matched with Asian crypto
| scammers and Thai women.
|
| They scammed me out of 60EUR. Don't waste your money or mental
| health on this.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I had a wake up call with Craigslist. 15 years ago I found
| every apartment or sublet or room for rent through Craigslist,
| no problem, never had an issue.
|
| After moving back to the states last year after a decade
| abroad, I tried Craigslist to find an apartment and literally
| every single one was a scam. Times change.
| charliebwrites wrote:
| Until dating apps explicitly measure success in terms of matches
| made and users deleting the app at all levels of their business,
| the quality of their products will suffer
|
| If a product team is incentivized to bring in revenue over
| creating long term relationships, then it will always make
| decisions that sacrifice the latter for the former
|
| Investors need to understand and accept that these business
| measure success in that way or find a different stock
|
| Otherwise the apps will have a slow trickle of users leaving
| after a slew of mediocre first dates or little to no high quality
| matches
| fireflash38 wrote:
| I've kind of wondered how you would structure something to have
| incentives line up.
|
| Sign a contract saying you pay nothing for as long as you are
| actively swiping/matching/communicating, but if you stop for
| 1-2 months you have to pay? Rather feels bad... but maybe the
| 'lucky' users would be more willing to pay since they found
| someone? As it currently is & the article describes, current
| dating app revenue feels super scummy from top to bottom.
|
| Maybe even a discount/refund if you come back to the app after
| a month or two off :D
| lazide wrote:
| You might as well ask how you could make whiskey healthy.
|
| It's not. That's the point.
| sakawa wrote:
| I'd like to bring back an article, more analytical on this
| paratox (the title, Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating,
| speaks a lot), from the old and now dead OkCupid blog. Funnily,
| this post was deleted just after the acquisition from the Match
| Group in 2011.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20100821041938/http://blog.okcup...
|
| Latest discussion on this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33163930
| carabiner wrote:
| Oh man my comment on how Match group is a gambling app company
| is up there. I've been online dating for 20 years with pretty
| decent experiences as a short, ugly man, but now indeed the
| app/online dating situation is the worst ever. Some of this is
| probably due to me being older though.
| phlipski wrote:
| With all due respect here - "20 years of successful online
| dating" sounds like an oxymoron! Unless you're choosing to
| date and to not enter into a long term relationship?
| carabiner wrote:
| Yes? You can be successful (or a failure) at being single,
| dating, or married. There's not one universally valid
| approach to relationships.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| With all due respect, this seems like a Rorschach test? He
| didn't say "20 years continuously dating online"? People
| can date online a bit, get into a relationship for a quite
| a while, relationship ends, go back to online dating, etc.
| lazide wrote:
| If you can consistently eat out at restaurants every night,
| why settle for Mom's home cooked meals every night?
|
| Some will see a reason to. Others won't.
|
| You won't see many cooked meal enthusiasts at the
| restaurant, either way.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Thanks. a great article. Over 10 years old and still spicy.
| Bookmarked for further research.
|
| Oddly, OKCupid came out in our interviews as "one of the
| better" types of business and produced the most long term
| matches. Has anyone got some other data sources on quality and
| satisfaction in dating apps, with some large sample sizes?
| devit wrote:
| Committed relationships found by judging other people's
| personality and looks are completely unnatural for human beings,
| and a result of conditioning by society.
|
| The natural state is living immersed in a place where other
| beings are and spontaneously interacting with them without a
| developed ego/personality filtering the interaction, as the
| closest relatives to human (chimpanzees and bonobos) do.
|
| This makes the socially-conditioned relationship model very
| unstable, since such a relationship will only work if, as long as
| and to the extent that the conditioned beliefs happen to match
| the other person and their beliefs.
|
| Since the conditioned beliefs are fundamentally false (because
| they are of the form "you will be happy if X" but happiness is
| actually the absence of any such belief) they are unstable and
| they will mutate once their falsehood is partially realized, and
| this process, along with viral cultural propagation, also creates
| many different conditioned mindsets that make matching and
| intimacy very challenging.
|
| So the problems with dating apps are just a very specific effect
| of what is the fundamental nature of human beings and reality.
| seydor wrote:
| the natural state is not the civilized one.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Humans are the universe, everything humans do is natural.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Very self centered way of looking at the world.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I personally think that reifying social norms is self-
| centered, but good luck ever trying to convince someone
| they're doing that.
| echoangle wrote:
| Only if you assume a useless definition of natural. By your
| definition, everything would be natural, right? Can you
| give an example for something thats not natural?
| lazide wrote:
| Finally I can label that Hydrogen bomb I've been working on
| in my basement 'organic'. Thanks!
| krisoft wrote:
| > spontaneously interacting with them without a developed
| ego/personality filtering the interaction
|
| Is a "developed ego/personality filtering the interaction" the
| same as having a personality? Why do you think that is not
| natural?
|
| > as the closest relatives to human (chimpanzees and bonobos)
| do
|
| How do you know that chimpanze and bonobo interactions are not
| "filtered by developed ego/personality"?
| ravenstine wrote:
| The tech is superficially premised on the idea that humans will
| behave the same in captivity. Necessity and familiarity are
| critical variables in the right environment for pair bonding
| that can't be replicated through technology that exists to
| undermine those two things. Technology solves the necessity of
| people to depend on one another or invest their time in
| interpersonal experiences; it's easier than ever to shut the
| world out and not worry about survival. It also allows people
| to be distant while creating the _illusion_ of connectedness,
| and people are going to be much less likely to invest in new
| relationships in that case. Take those things away and all you
| have is the primitive instinct to act on, which is what today
| 's dating apps are specifically tuned to. If you want more than
| that, it's almost _too bad_ , because opportunities for the
| sexes to engage in meaningful shared experiences are few and
| far between today. You're lucky if you see the same person more
| than once at a coffee shop. Go to a night club today, and
| chances are it will be predominantly full of people who for
| some reason aren't actually interested in having fun or giving
| anyone a chance outside of their clique. Workplaces are not
| only far more remote-oriented today but are less hospitable to
| relationships among coworkers than ever. Meetups are basically
| a joke now, and let's not even get into _the bar_.
|
| Younger generations are correct in getting out of the dating
| app game, even if perhaps it will take a while for people to
| actually return to meatspace for dating, by and large.
|
| It's said that it's better to have loved and lost than to have
| never loved at all, but Alfred Lord Tennyson never used a
| dating app.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > It's said that it's better to have loved and lost than to
| have never loved at all, but Alfred Lord Tennyson never used
| a dating app.
|
| Oh you beaut! I may have to steal that. :)
| notfed wrote:
| > Committed relationships found by judging other people's
| personality and looks are completely unnatural for human beings
|
| Citation? This is an extraordinary claim.
| not2b wrote:
| The fact that one company repeatedly bought out its competition
| and now owns, according the the article, 45 dating apps probably
| has a lot to do with why they suck. Instead of competing by
| trying to be better, just buy out the rivals, gut them, and make
| everything worse. As long as the dominant player has lots of
| capital to buy any upstarts and the regulatory environment lets
| them do it, it can be an easier way to make money than actually
| being good would be.
| Exoristos wrote:
| As well as regulating them, Western governments might want to
| actually fund high-quality, not-for-profit dating systems of
| some kind. Improved health for citizens, lessened extremism,
| not to mention possibly boosted population growth could result.
| drstewart wrote:
| I'd certainly be interested in the literature you have
| showing nonprofit dating apps reduce extremism, whatever that
| means.
| tompagenet2 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the point being made is that people having
| partners helps reduce isolation which can lead to extremism
| in some
| autoexec wrote:
| I haven't looked but I suspect that people in happy loving
| relationships are less likely to be extremists/terrorists
| than unhappy people without close ties or people in their
| lives to check in on their mental well-being.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| I haven't looked either, but I think the correlation runs
| the other way: people likely to be extremists/terrorists
| have trouble forming happy, loving relationships.
|
| I guess the fact that we disagree reaffirms the parent's
| point that we should look to studies/research instead of
| assuming.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Spoiler: it's bidirectional. Looking for linear causality
| is a fool's errand for most truly hard/persistent
| problems.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Yeah, I can't disagree with that. But we're all fools at
| one time or another, aren't we?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Having kids makes you soften up alot too. Which should
| probably decrease the lure of war or other terrorism
| alot?
| carabiner wrote:
| Read: they need to legalize prostitution. There are curious
| in-between sites like Cuddlecomfort.com (for just platonic
| cuddling and anyone who's reported for sex work is banned),
| but it needs to be out in the open and regulated.
| jstarfish wrote:
| "Hello Work, for Dating" would likely be a hit in more than
| just the west.
|
| Recruiters are just matchmakers after all.
| junar wrote:
| The Tokyo city government launched its own dating app
| recently.
|
| News article: https://www.scmp.com/week-
| asia/people/article/3248989/will-j...
|
| Previous HN discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39060790
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Western governments might want to actually fund [s] high-
| quality, not-for-profit dating systems of some kind. Improved
| health for citizens, lessened extremism, not to mention
| possibly boosted population growth could result.
|
| That's too sane! Human relationships are anathema to the
| profit, so what you suggest would be a disaster for
| capitalism and the meat grinder. Consumerism is driven by
| isolation, FOMO and insecurity. And without a supply of
| disocontented single young men, how will we feed the war
| machine?
|
| Slightly less cynically, one of the big factors we've found
| in recent research for episode 2 of "Love Isn't" [0] relates
| to the lack of public spaces. In the UK we've decimated parks
| to build shopping centres and more housing, and most of the
| pubs have closed. We spoke to several wealthy and intelligent
| UK citizens in their 30s or 40s who say they are very
| frustrated because dating apps are rubbish, but where do you
| meet people IRL now?
|
| [0] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=20
| fourseventy wrote:
| You want to put the government in control of who we date? No
| thanks.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I have to ask, how are you envisioning this goes poorly?
| Syonyk wrote:
| As opposed to for-profit, ad-driven, surveillance
| capitalism companies with a demonstrated interest in short
| term profits and hoovering all the data they can?
|
| Yeah.
|
| I'd be willing to take that risk.
|
| Don't get me wrong. I don't think the government is a good
| group to do this. I just think they're a less-bad group
| than the usual parties.
| skrbjc wrote:
| I've thought for a while now that it is a matter of national
| interest that your population couples up and has children.
| It's immensely important for the success of a nation and it's
| odd that the majority of how people meet now is through data
| apps and that there is no oversight over these at all. They
| have every incentive to match you with someone you are more
| likely to have a short term relationship than match you with
| someone that will result in a successful long term
| relationship. This has terrible long-term outcomes for a
| population at a large enough scale. With all of the talk of
| how algorithms can affect our society through news and social
| media, I've been somewhat surprised that dating app
| algorithms have not had much attention.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| It is socially corrosive. However, "family values" have
| traditionally been framed as a conservative value in the
| USA/UK/AUS at least.
|
| So, how do we move "love and human relationships" back into
| a progressive position in a time when entrenched power
| profits from lonliness and division?
| nvarsj wrote:
| It's already starting to happen (see Japan). As population
| growth plummets, governments will have to get involved.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| They ought to get some kind of restraining order against Match
| that prevents them from acquiring _any_ more companies.
| not2b wrote:
| There are antitrust laws. They just need to enforce them
| properly.
| passwordoops wrote:
| The laws already exist, and have existed for nearly 100
| years. Federal policy has been to ignore them since the 1980s
| in favor of "efficiency"
| thegrim33 wrote:
| In a free market, if such a company's products are crappy, as
| you propose, then that means there's an opportunity for anyone
| that wants to make profit to provide an app that isn't crappy;
| they'd get rewarded for it.
|
| The question shouldn't be "how do we stop this company", it
| should be, "why aren't people providing competing, non-crappy,
| apps?". Let's fix the root issue rather than proposing
| regulation to regulate a problem that shouldn't exist.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| This ignores a whole swath of complex social dynamics. Plenty
| of businesses exist that are horrible, but extremely
| difficult to dethrone. Ticketmaster is probably one of the
| less controversial examples.
| deprecative wrote:
| Money. You make money. That's why people aren't out
| competing. You get paid money. Lots of money.
| hibikir wrote:
| There's been a lot of discussion about this. My favorite
| argument there is that there's a big difference between what
| makes a dating app profitable, and what makes it good at
| finding people long term relationships. Not unlike how Amazon
| is far better off showing you ads in a search than giving you
| the best matching item that you probably want.
|
| The features that make an app crappier are what makes it
| sticky and lucrative. Making an app better at matching people
| is expensive, but doesn't give you revenue. The owners
| heading in that direction will get offers from the crappier,
| more profitable app maker that are hard to refuse.
| margalabargala wrote:
| This actually opens up a lot of opportunities.
|
| With the existing hegemony of Match, a new company doesn't
| actually need to worry about becoming profitable; if they
| can be good enough at matchmaking that they start to catch
| on, then they can rely on a buyout from Match. Much like
| how a decade ago, "getting bought by Google" was the
| business plan of a lot of companies, many of which did get
| acquired by google.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| This probably works once. I'm sure Match's buyout terms
| will include a non-compete agreement, so you can't keep
| repeating this trick until they run out of buyout money.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| The people who make the non-crappy competing apps are the
| ones who get bought and consolidated into the crappy parent
| company.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > In a free market
|
| Hypothetically yes. But why do we still pretend we're in a
| free market. That is so self evidently not the case.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Seems like a way to make alot of money. Make your own app, make
| a ton of money being better or get a huge exit payout when your
| bought up lol
| benced wrote:
| idk is Bumble a lot better? I don't think it is and now they've
| added ads that have a timer to skip. The fundamentals of this
| market makes me think dating apps are destined to be trash.
| interstice wrote:
| Sounds like a whole cottage industry could take advantage of
| this and repeatedly build competitor apps.
|
| How is this not an issue? Non competes?
| webel0 wrote:
| A dating app is a two sided market. And those are hard to get
| going. You need a lot of marketing, for one.
| passwordoops wrote:
| And you've just described how business works since the 1980s.
| Welcome to "market efficiency"
| presentation wrote:
| My theory of dating apps is that the hurdles in front of them
| will largely define your experience with them. For instance
| Tinder in China is behind the Great Firewall and requires you
| knowing it exists despite it not being marketed whatsoever there,
| both of which create a strong selective effect on who is on the
| app, making it a very different experience than Tinder elsewhere
| despite the app itself being the same (hint: I had a great
| experience with it, largely well-educated global-minded people
| with an anti-authoritarian bent and high motivation to take dates
| seriously, at least when I was using it many years ago).
|
| In trying to make a dating app "easy" you create a new selective
| effect for who it will appeal to, which may be (but usually is
| not) positive.
| navane wrote:
| What if the bad performance of the song apps, is the cause for
| the population decline? The natural urge for reproduction is
| tapped by the dating apps?
| bawolff wrote:
| It seems like the business model is misaligned.
|
| I wonder if there could be some alternative model that aligns
| incentives. Maybe something like group-on where they give coupons
| on things to take your date to, then get kickbacks from that
| (more dates= more money for them)
| Biologist123 wrote:
| A doctor friend refers to them as the chlamydia apps. But still
| uses them frequently.
| jstarfish wrote:
| Lmao. My doctor has zero availability and the lines at CVS
| triple during spring break for the same reason.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| The inevitable consequences of that optimization. All these apps
| just accelerated "change" and the pool is more Pareto than ever.
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