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The dating app paradox

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Re: The dating app paradox

#81

Post by dhosek »

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.

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#82

Post by red-iron-pine »

mattmaroon wrote: post #29
alistairSH wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s less dysfunctional than most organizations 1/10th its size.

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#83

Post by beaeglebeached »

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.

[flagged]

Re: The dating app paradox

#84

Post by shimonabi »

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 60€. Don't waste your money or mental health on this.

Re: The dating app paradox

#85

Post by glimshe »

garciasn wrote: post #49
circlefavshape wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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.

Any examples you would be comfortable sharing (ok to change the low level details of the situation)?

Re: The dating app paradox

#86

Post by dhosek »

65 wrote: post #78

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 intereste…

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#87

Post by charliebwrites »

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

Re: The dating app paradox

#88

Post by thimp »

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.

Careful now. A bad one cost me $500k after 20 years.

Re: The dating app paradox

#89

Post by neaden »

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.

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.

Re: The dating app paradox

#90

Post by Qem »

leach wrote: post #68

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 miss…

> 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.

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