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The dating app paradox

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Re: The dating app paradox

#171

Post by jstarfish »

Qem wrote: post #90
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.

I investigate these complaints for a living. Please don't date anybody you work with. We'll both be happier for it.

The fun always starts after a breakup and the other party doesn't want to see you at work anymore. There is usually no penalty for falsely reporting anyone to HR for harassment "in good faith," and there are likely anti-retaliation policies protecting malicious claimants from punishment for "misrepresentation" of any situation. Your side of the story will be recorded for the sake of appearance, and ignored. The system is completely broken.

If you're sure they're your soul mate, changing departments is not enough, leave now, on your own terms. You do not want a common HR department acting as a mediator for your domestic disputes. You're asking to be made unemployed and homeless.

Re: The dating app paradox

#172

Post by nonrandomstring »

thegrim33 wrote: post #155
not2b wrote: post #103

The fact that one company repeatedly bought out its competition and now owns, according the the article, 45 dating apps probably has a lot to do with why they suck. Instead of competing by trying to be better, just buy out the rivals, gut them, and make everything worse. As long as the dominant player has lots of capital to buy any upstarts and the regulatory environment lets them do it, it can be an easier way to ma…

In a free market, if such a company's products are crappy, as you propose, then that means there's an opportunity for anyone that wants to make profit to provide an app that isn't crappy; they'd get rewarded for it. The question shouldn't be "how do we stop this company", it should be, "why aren't people providing competing, non-crappy, apps?". Let's fix the root issue rather than proposing regulation to regulate a p…

> In a free market

Hypothetically yes. But why do we still pretend we're in a free market. That is so self evidently not the case.

Re: The dating app paradox

#173

Post by nonrandomstring »

ravenstine wrote: post #159
devit wrote: post #98

Committed relationships found by judging other people's personality and looks are completely unnatural for human beings, and a result of conditioning by society. The natural state is living immersed in a place where other beings are and spontaneously interacting with them without a developed ego/personality filtering the interaction, as the closest relatives to human (chimpanzees and bonobos) do. This makes the socia…

The tech is superficially premised on the idea that humans will behave the same in captivity. Necessity and familiarity are critical variables in the right environment for pair bonding that can't be replicated through technology that exists to undermine those two things. Technology solves the necessity of people to depend on one another or invest their time in interpersonal experiences; it's easier than ever to shut…

> It's said that it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but Alfred Lord Tennyson never used a dating app.

Oh you beaut! I may have to steal that. :)

Re: The dating app paradox

#174

Post by tayo42 »

not2b wrote: post #103

The fact that one company repeatedly bought out its competition and now owns, according the the article, 45 dating apps probably has a lot to do with why they suck. Instead of competing by trying to be better, just buy out the rivals, gut them, and make everything worse. As long as the dominant player has lots of capital to buy any upstarts and the regulatory environment lets them do it, it can be an easier way to ma…

Seems like a way to make alot of money. Make your own app, make a ton of money being better or get a huge exit payout when your bought up lol

Re: The dating app paradox

#175

Post by phlipski »

carabiner wrote: post #122
sakawa wrote: post #96

I'd like to bring back an article, more analytical on this paratox (the title, Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating, speaks a lot), from the old and now dead OkCupid blog. Funnily, this post was deleted just after the acquisition from the Match Group in 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20100821041938/http://blog.okcup... Latest discussion on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33163930

Oh man my comment on how Match group is a gambling app company is up there. I've been online dating for 20 years with pretty decent experiences as a short, ugly man, but now indeed the app/online dating situation is the worst ever. Some of this is probably due to me being older though.

With all due respect here - "20 years of successful online dating" sounds like an oxymoron! Unless you're choosing to date and to not enter into a long term relationship?

Re: The dating app paradox

#178

Post by Terr_ »

015a wrote: post #131
solatic wrote: post #47

It's only a paradox until you realize that dating apps would shoot themselves in the foot with such a user-hostile model, trashing their brand. Hanlon's Razor directs us to the simpler explanation, which is that 90% of people on dating markets stay on dating markets; for which there are many, many highly personalized reasons. No dating app can fix its users' mindsets. There are three rules on dating apps, and they ha…

I really like this take, and I think it becomes extremely self-evident once you think about it for a bit, and talk with people who use dating apps IRL. "Dating apps are incentivized to keep people going on mediocre first dates" is such a tired take that would require such incredible sophistication and secrecy to pull off, "we can't make the matches too shitty, but we also can't make them too good, damn it Jim that ma…

> that would require such incredible sophistication and secrecy to pull off

No, there's no need for a strawman Snidely Whiplash, it can be done through regular management practices with plausible deniability.

1. Collect metrics around recurring revenue and "engagement". (With the software, not engagements between couples.)

2. Use those metrics to choose what changes in the software and who gets promoted.

Low quality matches is the default state, they don't have to deliberately engineer it. They can just let it happen, or not care when it happens as the result of some other change.

Re: The dating app paradox

#179

Post by phlipski »

ben7799 wrote: post #125
sss111 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any advice for someone who's just finished college and moved to a new place, its really hard to find people to hang out as friends.

You want to look for some kind of social hobby that naturally attracts a wide range of people, both men and women, is in person, and makes you happy regardless of whether you're actually meeting people. Certain sports qualify. Volunteer groups can qualify. Some hobbies work. For sports today the rock climbing community is very inclusive and the sport naturally causes people to get to know each other since you can't c…

Married with 3 kids here. If was single today I'd be at the local rock gyms 24/7. I took my kids climbing a few weeks ago and I couldn't believe how many women were in that place. Roughly a 50/50 male/female ratio, and everyone is super fit. Yoga pants - chefs kiss. Easy to strike up conversations too when looking for help with a problem...

Re: The dating app paradox

#180

Post by rightbyte »

autoexec wrote: post #128
drstewart wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd certainly be interested in the literature you have showing nonprofit dating apps reduce extremism, whatever that means.

I haven't looked but I suspect that people in happy loving relationships are less likely to be extremists/terrorists than unhappy people without close ties or people in their lives to check in on their mental well-being.

Having kids makes you soften up alot too. Which should probably decrease the lure of war or other terrorism alot?
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