>absolutely massive amount of moderation that it would require.
Wow, this thread blew up -- I think you hit on the core issue, and one that I hadn't thought enough about. Moderation doesn't scale and is very difficult.
>You have age verification laws, payment gateways that will stop processing if they get even a whiff that sex workers might be using your site to advertise, and bigots who will DDOS you
I don't believe you on the sex worker part -- I think I went on a few "dates" where folks were being polite because I didn't understand some of the language and phrasing used in their profiles. (Also sex worker is a broad term, and dancers camgirls etc want to find true love too.)
It can be hard, dating in a big city like SF. And I probably had a "garbage in, garbage out" experience with the site since I lied and said I was straight and some people filter "the straights" out.
The twenty aughts were incredibly homophobic, and if you're a 2 on the kinsey scale -- someone who only wants to hook up and not date the same sex -- it was a lot simpler to just not bring it up because a lot of people will drop ten twenty match points if you admit you've had sex with a man while fronting as progressive.
Finally, since some of the language and phrasing I see you using reminds me of internal Google mailing lists folks have given me a peek at, I'd like to say here, in public, that I went on a lot of dates in the Bay Area with extremely privileged people who don't seem to get that on a long enough timeline if you're scared shitless of my hacking skills on a date but doubt me in the interview room, that's going to be radicalizing... a persistent pattern of being told if I won't slam a baby into someone they won't accurately attest to my skills, a persistent pattern of being gatekept into precarity that did not make me feel like I had any allies or friends in the technology space and I was grateful SF had a thriving arts scene to keep me sane.
Anyways, the world is darker -- I got trolled at one point when I reactivated OKC. Like, legit "I'm not even sure if this is a real person" level troll, something I never used to encounter online dating. (Woman said she wants a man who loves her like she loves Bibi, splits her time between Israel, and... has no idea what the black flag movement is? Felt like I was being baited into going off on someone who might not really exist.)
>bigots who will DDOS you if you dare to cater to the needs of minorities.
I've had the sites hosting essays about my childhood DDoSed as I was shopping around a sequel -- there's a war going on out there to shape our media landscape that the normies don't see or sense.