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Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

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Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#111

Post by devit »

This is awesome, please make it succeed if possible.

Dating sites are simply horrible at actually creating awesome interaction, and one of the first reason is the fact that obviously looks are pretty much irrelevant for that, yet most seem centered on photos.

The site is empty for me other than the top bar though, so can't give any more advice for it.

IMHO the most important thing though is to match people that want the same thing out of dating.

I.e. if someone wants to have a one night stand and the other wants a long monogamous relationship they should not even see each other's profile, yet pretty much all dating sites don't even let you state your goals!

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#112

Post by devit »

crca wrote: post #73

What’s the incentive for attractive people? Why would you voluntarily give up a competitive advantage in a highly competitive market? If you’re ugly like me this is great.

That you can select people that don't care about looks, which is generally a signal for someone who is more experienced, socially sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than average, and more likely to give you a pleasant experience.

Also, in case the system is selective, then you know that the other person likes you for something other than looks, which is also a good indicator for a better experience, both in a short-term and a long-term relationship.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#113

Post by Lucadg »

gnicholas wrote: post #109
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also, unfortunately, a moral hazard associated with not having pictures. Such a site will probably tend to attract people who would not be glad to be judged by their appearance, other things being equal. For many, this would decrease the average utility.

I think you mean adverse selection, not moral hazard. Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem. When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what…

Amazing. I'm not sure "contrarian thinking" is the right expression but you both definitely proved that value is often where no one is looking.

Your intuition was certainly good but her move was probably even smarter: she found an efficient way to attract the smart ones.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#114

Post by devit »

RomanBob wrote: post #47

Dating sites are female-driven, and females select primarily on looks, as has been shown on plenty-of-fish and tinder data analysis. So a dating sites without pictures would never work. I hope to be proven wrong, but I don't think so.

They select on looks because that's all they have on dating sites.

People (especially women in mainstream society) mostly ignore looks when they have already had a real-life pleasant interaction; however, it is very challenging to replicate that online, since it's very hard to give incentives to be genuine.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#115

Post by DoreenMichele »

gnicholas wrote: post #109
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also, unfortunately, a moral hazard associated with not having pictures. Such a site will probably tend to attract people who would not be glad to be judged by their appearance, other things being equal. For many, this would decrease the average utility.

I think you mean adverse selection, not moral hazard. Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem. When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what…

Beautiful women face substantial barriers to establishing a real relationship. Much of the world is inclined to treat them as nothing but an object.

It's absolutely not all upside (to be beautiful) and it's a problem one cannot complain about. No one will have any sympathy whatsoever.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#116

Post by gamegoblin »

dinkleberg wrote: post #32

I applaud the attempt to innovate in the dating world which tends to be solely focused on looks. But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you. I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there a…

Potential solution: make photos and text bios disjoint.

That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don’t know whose photo matches to whose bio.

You only “match” with someone if you swipe right on their photo and their bio.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#117

Post by Guest0918231 »

gamegoblin wrote: post #116
dinkleberg wrote: post #32

I applaud the attempt to innovate in the dating world which tends to be solely focused on looks. But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you. I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there a…

Potential solution: make photos and text bios disjoint. That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don’t know whose photo matches to whose bio. You only “match” with someone if you swipe right on their photo and their bio.

In that case people would swipe on just the attractive users and on every bio without reading them.

A simple fix would be to only allow users to swipe on 20% of the photos and 20% of the bios.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#118

Post by sandoooo »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #115
gnicholas wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean adverse selection, not moral hazard. Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem. When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what…

Beautiful women face substantial barriers to establishing a real relationship. Much of the world is inclined to treat them as nothing but an object. It's absolutely not all upside (to be beautiful) and it's a problem one cannot complain about. No one will have any sympathy whatsoever.

You know what I don't get? Why oh why is it so hard to find any authentic food from in ? They all seem to serve the same old boring 20 dishes. Last time I went it was so bad I didn't finish my plate. Yes I know there are starving children in Africa.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#119

Post by sandoooo »

Let's avert our eyes from the tire fires for a second: how would you actually fix this idea so that it actually works?

Let's define two win conditions, and you have to hit just one:

1. How to make this actually profitable without being more dark-patterny than Tinder?

2. How to help at least some of the people who are not finding what they need on Tinder, while expending only a reasonable amount of resources?

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#120

Post by 83hajfjeijg »

crca wrote: post #80
hombre_fatal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem great at all. You're just procrastinating the "reveal" to a later date where, after N amount of time invested, it might all be for nothing. Also, that sounds like some seriously uncomfortable potential scenarios to me. Like someone who was using 10 year old pics of themselves finally meeting you at the bar. What exactly is the upside again? Getting to pretend like looks don't matter when they actually do…

As an ugly person I have a higher chance of scoring a date with someone attractive using this photoless site than I would have otherwise. Seems like a win.

You're assuming attractive people would use this site in the first place. At the very least, I'd expect the attractive to ugly ratio to look quite different on this site compared to other dating sites.
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