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The dating app paradox

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Re: The dating app paradox

#71

Post by Spastche »

prepend wrote: post #55
Madmallard wrote: post #31

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 t…

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…

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#72

Post by alistairSH »

mattmaroon wrote: post #70
alistairSH wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

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…

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#73

Post by randomdata »

alistairSH wrote: post #23
maxsilver wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 havi…

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.

> 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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#74

Post by ravenstine »

michaelt wrote: post #34

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.

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#75

Post by breather »

Madmallard wrote: post #31

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 t…

> 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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#76

Post by breather »

Spastche wrote: post #71
prepend wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#77

Post by janalsncm »

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#78

Post by 65 »

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#79

Post by Rebelgecko »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #64
blendo wrote: post #62

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…

>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

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

Re: The dating app paradox

#80

Post by glimshe »

janalsncm wrote: post #77

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.

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).
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