Live data from Hacker News

Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

wfmynews2.com

401–410 of 416 posts

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#401
post #34

I had an idea for a dating app a while back, in which the basic idea is that you pay the service to message someone (above a free weekly limit of say 1 msg). The pricing would be reactive - as popular attractive people get more messages, the more it would cost to message them, growing exponentially in order to limit incoming messages to approx a few a day. Unpopular people who got few messages would have a price that…

How is this different from pimping?

I'm not sure what the benefit the service you are proposing is to the attractive, popular people.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "this suggests women are actually looking for the wrong things when they use online dating apps" That is quite the claim!

I suspect this also the same for men. In general people don't actually know what they want.

In the author's opinion, what men are looking for in online dating apps is to dispense with the app:

> For a little contrast, I went on a few dates with men as a woman during the course of my time as Ned. The men I met on the internet, and then subsequently in person, didn't require this epistolary preamble, nor did they offer it. They were eager to meet as soon as possible, usually, I found, because they wanted to see what I looked like. Their feelings or fantasies would be based on that far more than, or perhaps to the exclusion of, anything I might write to them.

Say what you will about this attitude, I wouldn't say that the men are looking for something different online than they are in person. Rather, they think online interaction is getting in the way of what they want, and they do their best to avoid it.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#403

I tried many dating site over the years and the one thing that stood out is if you're under 6 feet tall don't even bother creating an account.

Sorry, you're lying to yourself if you think your height is the issue.

If I put 6 feet tall on the dating site wit all the same info there was a dramatic increase in interest. Disappointing but no surprise. I'm fine with my height but it seems dating sites are not the place for normal people.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#404

I tried many dating site over the years and the one thing that stood out is if you're under 6 feet tall don't even bother creating an account.

It really makes me feel sad you've had this experience I hope you change your mind. I am a fellow short man so I have experienced rejection because of height among other lame reasons. I'm not conventionally good looking either. But this type of mentality is negative and detrimental to your success as well as the success of other men in the same position. Your looks absolutely matter and to say otherwise is disingenuo…

Thanks for the comments but I'm good I've never had a problem with my height except on dating sites. It seems the women who use the sites also ignore anyone below 6 feet. I actually tested that and it was sad to see the results.

It's that magic "6 foot" number it seems women want. I'm not talking 5 feet or 5'6" even 5'11 3/4 seems to be too short. I guess dating sites are irrational it's like shopping for perfection not reality.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whites are favored on dating apps (e.g. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3244459 ) and the model proposed would make that division pretty explicit

how would it make the division explicit? Be specific. How would the pay to play messaging system benefit a rich white more than a rich black? That’s the very specific point we are discussing, and my claim is that race is irrelevant in this discussion. If you have evidence to the contrary on exactly that point then I’d like to hear it. Not some hand wavy vague generalisation on a tangential point, how would a pay to p…

This is hilarious.

Because white people are more wealthy than those of other races. That is a hardcore socioeconomic fact in the US. In pure mean and quantity.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#406
post #34

I had an idea for a dating app a while back, in which the basic idea is that you pay the service to message someone (above a free weekly limit of say 1 msg). The pricing would be reactive - as popular attractive people get more messages, the more it would cost to message them, growing exponentially in order to limit incoming messages to approx a few a day. Unpopular people who got few messages would have a price that…

I can see where you're coming from, but I think in practice this is not a great idea. Even if it's not intentional, it's not going to be great publicity when you have an app that shows different women with different price tags. I imagine it's not great either if, on current dating apps, the number of messages women receive becomes public information. The problem here is less that different women cost different prices…

How about remove money and visible numbers and instead make people watch an ad, then have a lootbox style reveal of whether their message is sent. The retry rate is limited by ad playtime. The odds are set as described above. Still icky.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple method of filtering that occurred to me a long time ago - Make the service completely free, but require a credit rating above a certain threshold. Possibly apply that to men but not women.

If you insist on treating every man who wants to use your service like a john I'm not sure you're going to like the men you get.

It's obviously something that would upset people, but the point is that it's very significantly different than making men pay (like a john) and much more aligned with what people really want.

You don't need or want a filter to determine who is desirable; you just want to eliminate everyone who is completely unacceptable and provide a fairly large number of options that are all decent.

It might also be necessary to provide some sort of clever cover, so it didn't seem like the business was doing what it was doing. From a marketing perspective, I don't think it would sell, but from a results perspective, I think it would.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#408
post #36

Dating apps are extremely broken, and yet they're almost all owned by a single company: Match Group. I have a suspicion that these apps are left intentionally broken to keep users fruitlessly searching and boost engagement metrics. I can't find a complete list of the companies they've acquired, but last time I checked, Match owns over 20 different apps and dating sites, including Tinder, OkCupid, and Hinge. We really…

Sorry, but they're not extremely broken. I worked at OkCupid 8 years ago, saw the issues they faced then and have seen the evolution of the apps since then, and right now they really are as good as anyone's been able to come up with that attracts enough active users to generate promising dates. If there were a drastically better solution, then it would take over the market. The last major innovation was when Tinder i…

   I worked at OkCupid 8 years ago
You started before they were bought out by Match?

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#409
post #36

Dating apps are extremely broken, and yet they're almost all owned by a single company: Match Group. I have a suspicion that these apps are left intentionally broken to keep users fruitlessly searching and boost engagement metrics. I can't find a complete list of the companies they've acquired, but last time I checked, Match owns over 20 different apps and dating sites, including Tinder, OkCupid, and Hinge. We really…

Sorry, but they're not extremely broken. I worked at OkCupid 8 years ago, saw the issues they faced then and have seen the evolution of the apps since then, and right now they really are as good as anyone's been able to come up with that attracts enough active users to generate promising dates. If there were a drastically better solution, then it would take over the market. The last major innovation was when Tinder i…

  Photos reveal potential likely chemistry
Photos say nothing about chemistry, using the dating-normal definition of the term. They only provide appearance, and usually an idealized version of that.

Re: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's the Only Guy Allowed

#410
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm saying is a might as well have dated random people for a year, it would have been the same result. The dating sites sell you on 'matching.' Oh, and if you think you're using it for free, think again. They are collecting all kinds of personal information about you

> What I'm saying is a might as well have dated random people for a year, it would have been the same result. The dating sites sell you on 'matching.' Dating apps sell you on showing you more people you otherwise would never meet. The chemistry and "good match" are left to the two people to figure out via chatting and a date.

Yeah, my attitude was always that I could filter out “definitely no” in the app, but there’s no way to tell a “maybe” from a “hell yes” until you meet in person.
Post reply on HN