Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#21

Post by dabinat » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:47 AM UTC

I actually prefer the swiping apps. As a man I’m expected to make the first move and on apps like OkC it’s easy to waste a lot of time and effort messaging people who are not at all interested in me. The swiping is a signal that there is at least some mutual interest there before I put effort in.

But the main problem with the dating apps is the business model. Their job is to help you find love, but if you find love you delete the app and they don’t make any more money. So they’re incentivized to keep you single forever. I don’t believe Hinge at all when they say they want you to delete their app as quickly as possible.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#22

Post by eru » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:48 AM UTC

al_borland wrote: post #2

Nothing, just The Match Group buying everything as soon as it becomes popular and incentivizing keeping people using the apps over successful long-term matches.

That's begging the question!

If The Match Group is a steady supplier of startup exits in this space, that should incentivise more people to start. So we should see more people trying to resurrect old school OKCupid, not fewer.

Though I suspect the answer isn't that people aren't trying, but that these trials don't succeed enough for OP to notice.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#23

Post by TZubiri » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:48 AM UTC

dfabulich wrote: post #16

1. Dating apps/sites are a rich-get-richer market. Most people go where everyone else goes, because everyone else is there. 2. The more work you ask your users to do up front, (e.g. answering a bunch of survey questions, taking high quality photos, paying up front) the fewer highly desirable people you'll have, because they can easily find people wherever they go without doing all that work. 3. Swiping is more fun (m…

1. Dating apps/sites are a rich-get-richer market. Most people go where everyone else goes, because everyone else is there.

I get that this is true for social networks in general, like messaging platforms, there's a first mover and network effect.

However for dating apps specifically, there is not truly a network effect, all you need to find is one person, and for monogamous relationships (which incidentally are more common among heterosexual couples, whereas Tinder and its descendants, coming from grindr heritage, tend against) it's even more true, as in the ideal scenario each user finds one other user, there's not a huge amount of network interaction.

I also think that both in the general and specific course, there's a lot of incentives for niches, subcultures, alternative cultures, often times part of a culture is to avoid the monotonizing mainstream tropes and memes.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#24

Post by eru » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:48 AM UTC

From what I can tell, people ARE starting these kinds of projects. They just don't get popular enough for you to notice.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#25

Post by eru » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:49 AM UTC

firefax wrote: post #5

minimaxir wrote: post #3

Because people were less cynical in the 2010s and there's no way to bring that back.

>Because people were less cynical in the 2010s and there's no way to bring that back. We were only one year out of the Bush administration. I got a lot of lectures on third way neoliberalism from women who in the same age bracket who today are all stone cold socialists.

Was she in favour or against neoliberalism?

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#26

Post by sickcodebruh » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:49 AM UTC

My wife and I met on original okcupid. Not much to say other than the system worked! It’s sad to hear they become tinder-y but I guess it’s hard to compete with the immediacy and dopamine prospects of swiping.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#27

Post by eru » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:49 AM UTC

woodgala wrote: post #10

firefax wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because people were less cynical in the 2010s and there's no way to bring that back. We were only one year out of the Bush administration. I got a lot of lectures on third way neoliberalism from women who in the same age bracket who today are all stone cold socialists.

Maybe you should have tried a Christian or conservative dating site? OKC was fabulously non normative.

They seemed plenty 'normative' to me, in the sense of professing strong opinions on eg 'I would never date a Tory voter'.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#28

Post by ElProlactin » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:51 AM UTC

> What is stopping someone, aside from patents, from making a match based dating site to compete with the current market?

Demand.

Old-school dating was like cocaine and the swiping-oriented apps are crack. It doesn't mean there would be no demand for an old-school OKC clone but it's a niche play and given Match Group's dominance, the capital you'd need to invest to compete would be significant.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#29

Post by zmgsabst » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:52 AM UTC

TZubiri wrote: post #23

dfabulich wrote: post #16

1. Dating apps/sites are a rich-get-richer market. Most people go where everyone else goes, because everyone else is there. 2. The more work you ask your users to do up front, (e.g. answering a bunch of survey questions, taking high quality photos, paying up front) the fewer highly desirable people you'll have, because they can easily find people wherever they go without doing all that work. 3. Swiping is more fun (m…

1. Dating apps/sites are a rich-get-richer market. Most people go where everyone else goes, because everyone else is there. I get that this is true for social networks in general, like messaging platforms, there's a first mover and network effect. However for dating apps specifically, there is not truly a network effect, all you need to find is one person, and for monogamous relationships (which incidentally are more…

You also have a self-selection effect: users willing to fill out more involved surveys may pair with each other at a higher rate than the overall background.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?

#30

Post by ElProlactin » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:53 AM UTC

dabinat wrote: post #21

I actually prefer the swiping apps. As a man I’m expected to make the first move and on apps like OkC it’s easy to waste a lot of time and effort messaging people who are not at all interested in me. The swiping is a signal that there is at least some mutual interest there before I put effort in. But the main problem with the dating apps is the business model. Their job is to help you find love, but if you find love…

> The swiping is a signal that there is at least some mutual interest there before I put effort in.

I think you vastly overestimate the "interest" a swipe represents. A significant number of people swipe out of boredom and a lot of swipes are mistakes.