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Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

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Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#161

Post by thomastjeffery »

Animats wrote: post #78
johnfn wrote: post #38

Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps dont suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? (A sad fact is that dating will just suck for some % of the population. Is it possible that if there were no apps the same % would be saying how IRL dating sucks?) I know many people in stable LTRs or married who met through dating…

> Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps don't suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? Yes. The reality is well known. PlentyOfFish used to publish statistics. About 10% of dating app users are "date bacon" and find matches they like. Everyone else is a dissatisfied loser. The losers provide the repeat business and…

The only problem with this is its defeatist framing.

What most women who use dating apps are looking for, in a profile on that dating app, is essentially what you described, or at least a set of similarly rare attributes. Even worse, is the set of attributes that she is looking to avoid.

Dating apps are nothing but attributes. That's their core problem, and their core success. If you can get a small percentage (probably male) of users to attract a less-small percentage of (probably female) users, you end up with an infinite churn of "success" (read engagement).

The natural incentive in this situation is to show that small percentage of popular male profiles to as many users as possible. This gives you both profitable engagement and actual success metrics that you can brag about!

---

So now that we understand the problem a little more, can we start working to solve it?

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#163

Post by eastbound »

whynotmakealt wrote: post #122
eastbound wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she said that no it didn't impact Depending on the shape of the discussion, maybe she denied it so you don’t fell into the “I’m victim, it’s over now” trap. Grownups do that. Don’t take it bad. I’m 45 and single, and grownups tell me all the time that it’s not too late for me. I think they deny the obvious to console me, but living in a situation where everyone denies your actual situation is disorienting, and make…

Yeah radicalization is really bad I wasn't intending to victimize myself, I am not saying that its just me whose changed, but its rather the whole world which feels changed idk really That’s a sudden transition in about 1 year at the age of ~12 Yeah I was of 11 years in 6th grade, and since the sudden transition happened after covid in 7th-8th grade when I was in 12-13 years old, I assumed it was because of covid whe…

Yep, that’s the moral of the story: Keep trying, for both of us. PS: Don’t expect a girl to share programming as a hobby, it’s virtually nonexistent, even if it looks like this at school.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#164

Post by [deleted] »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #118
Animats wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps don't suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? Yes. The reality is well known. PlentyOfFish used to publish statistics. About 10% of dating app users are "date bacon" and find matches they like. Everyone else is a dissatisfied loser. The losers provide the repeat business and…

> What women want There are 4 billions women on this planet. The average women as a concept is meaningless for someone looking for a person to date. Even if you could only find someone far in the metaphorical tail, variance and population size are so high we are talking millions of people. Lesbian manages to find people to marry for god sake. This kind of weird generalisation really needs to die. It helps absolutely…

[deleted]

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#165

Post by trashface »

I don't think speed dating is going to replace apps. I did some dating pre-app, it wasn't big then. Its unnatural, and doesn't appeal to many personalities.

I'm one of the men apps don't work for, easy to see why we hate them. For women, I think they say they don't like apps, but they do like the fact they get an endless stream of potentially date-able men from them. So their revealed preference is they like the apps, and that is why the apps continue to be relevant.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#166

Post by atoav »

thwarted wrote: post #144
atoav wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I ask myself who in my friends circles has had the happiest, longest lasting relationships it almost never were the guys with the money. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean the inverse is true and you score big time if you are an ugly bum. It just means other qualities matter often more than men think. Being a kind guy, having humor, being emotionally reliable (meaning you're emotionally stable and not easily…

Money (or access to money) is often a proxy for a certain kind of stability and access to leisure, two things that many people strive for. But the joke wasn't about long term, successful relationships. The guy was interested in looking attractive. That could have any kind of relationship goal, from one night stands to marriage, or even meeting someone who could introduce them to even more people.

Being attractive can be helpful to get to know people. But it can also be a curse. If you know really attractive women (like international fashion model types) you will learn that it can be very hard for them at times to find friends that don't just chose them for their looks.

Now if all you want are short hook ups, sure. But I'd suspect most people are looking for a lasting partnership where the other side likes them for who they are and both people have a good time being together. And widely desirable traits can paradoxically make it harder to find that, also because the other side has incentives to fool you.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#167

Post by svv »

ta12653421 wrote: post #146
gassi wrote: post #2

I think the author missed an important factor: misaligned incentives. Dating apps make money when users spend time (and money) on the platform. Users who find a partner tend to leave the platform, so dating companies are incentivized to prevent that from happening. Those companies then have more opportunities to up-sell those users on premium features, which they're more likely to purchase due to repeated failure and…

By far absolutely _not_ true: - i have worked in the space for some years for two of the biggest platforms in my country - dating sites track a lot KPI and discuss them and test them thoroughly - the KPI "do-more-users-leave-our-platform-earlier-if-our-matching-algo-is-just-too-good" - I promise: In alle the years, this question WAS NEVER - NEVER!!!!!!! - raised, regardless wich Manager or which Exec. This metric isn…

> - the KPI "do-more-users-leave-our-platform-earlier-if-our-matching-algo-is-just-too-good" - I promise: In alle the years, this question WAS NEVER - NEVER!!!!!!! - raised, regardless wich Manager or which Exec. This metric isnt even debated.

What labels do they use for training their algos though? What is their definition of a successful match, is it a date, a recurring date, or something closer to a long-term relationship?

If matches predominantly result in "failure" they might just not have enough "long-term success" labels to go by, and their proxy labels will be biased towards short-term successes.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#168

Post by snowwrestler »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #7

From the article: > (…) pictures also give lots of information about important non-superficial things, like your personality, values, social class, and lifestyle. This is the one thing that puzzles me most about dating apps: where do all these pictures come from? People seem to have pictures of them doing all kinds of activities. When I’m out with friends doing whatever, no one is taking pictures. Even if they did, i…

There’s a pretty big range between “I don’t have any pictures of myself” and “documenting every second of our lives.” Most people are somewhere in that range.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#169

Post by tsss »

_yb2s wrote: post #158
Animats wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Controversial take, but have we considered that possibly dating apps don't suck, and that this perception is driven by a vocal minority of the people who have the worst experience on them? Yes. The reality is well known. PlentyOfFish used to publish statistics. About 10% of dating app users are "date bacon" and find matches they like. Everyone else is a dissatisfied loser. The losers provide the repeat business and…

I think it’s true that most people have a bad experience, but I don’t think it’s caused by things like height, age, and income level…. But social skills, confidence, and emotional vulnerability, which are things almost anyone can develop with deliberate effort, and also lead to better and more stable relationships. For me, developing vulnerability and risk taking caused me to go from completely unsuccessful, to being…

And those social skills, confidence, emotional vulnerability appear where exactly on the profile?

Please. Online dating is 80% looks, 10% height and 10% money.

Re: Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts

#170

Post by kelnos »

To the point about the incentives of for-profit companies: dating apps are more profitable if they take longer to match you with someone you like. If everyone finds their ideal match within a week, they cancel their subscription and the company makes no more money off them.

If the company puts some barriers in the app that slows down the process, you remain their customer for longer. Of course, there's a tension: they can't drag it out too much, or you'll get frustrated and leave.

OkCupid used to write about this effect, back when they were independent and free. But once they were acquired by Match Group they deleted their old blog and stopped talking about things like that.

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