With the disclaimer that I've never operated in this space, I would imagine that a significant barrier to the creation of new dating sites is that most people who care enough to try to build a good service are spooked by the liability involved (hosting boatloads of personal info, getting entangled legally when things go wrong, keeping creeps at bay, etc). At least from my standpoint as a layman it looks like an absolute minefield compared to a nice boring spreadsheet SaaS or something.
Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
31–40 of 69 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#32An interesting challenge with dating sites is that the “bell curves” of attractiveness versus desired attractiveness between men and women aren’t symmetric. This leads to difficulties running a dating site because women will only say yes to 9/10 or better men, but men will message anyone with a pulse which in turn inflates female expectations. Many women only ever join dating sites as an ego boost, with no intention…
For dudes, you just pay. They boost you and give you a bonus boost when you first start.
The tinder strategy is simple. Sign up, make profile, swipe, stop, come back in a week. Then upgrade with in app purchase, hustle to get 2-3 contacts, and churn the subscription. Repeat if needed with a different app and rotate as needed.
You’ll get a date with this method and the rest is up to you.
Look around, hot girls are with toad looking guys all of the time. You need to manipulate the platform so you are front and center.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#33[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#34How do you deal with bots?
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#351. 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…
> for monogamous relationships (which incidentally are more common among heterosexual couples, whereas Tinder and its descendants, coming from grindr heritage, tend against)
Describing everyone who isn't straight as "tending against monogamy" is bigotry. I'm aware that there's a 0.1% PP difference or whatever -- still absurd.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#36The Match monopoly buying you out is one problem. A bigger problem is that dating sites have to have a lot of users before anybody wants to use them. (They especially need women users.) This conundrum is a huge barrier to entry in the space. The temptation to pad your user base with fake accounts, scammers, and sex workers is tremendous. If you do that, you boost engagement for a few months and then you die.
Yet another problem is churn. If people find a life partner they drop off the site, and you constantly have to find new users to replace them. This is one way a dating site is fundamentally different from e.g. Facebook. As a result, some of the less-scrupulous sites purposely make it less likely that you will see people who seem like great matches, or they interfere with your ability to message those people, just to keep you using the site longer.
Jump-starting the initial chicken/egg issue in an ethical way is AFAIK an unsolved problem. In the post-OKC era, Bumble is the only one I know of that semi-succeeded because they made it woman-centric from the start.
Finally (yeah, I've thought about this a lot), the modern mobile app-only approach can be a distinct turnoff for people like me. Mobile apps make it difficult to write much text about yourself, which was something OKC encouraged. Apps also present a safety issue: Apps often require location permissions, which means employees of the site can stalk women. (This has happened.) There's no good reason dating apps should require location permission, but most do for the same reason most apps of any kind do: Location gives the site owner personal info they can sell to advertisers. All that having been said, the vast majority of the market probably prefers mobile apps to web sites.
The whole space seems like a cesspool of bootstrapping problems coupled with extreme incentives for unethical behavior. Sorry if I sound pessimistic but you asked what's stopping this from happening. This is my take.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#37An interesting challenge with dating sites is that the “bell curves” of attractiveness versus desired attractiveness between men and women aren’t symmetric. This leads to difficulties running a dating site because women will only say yes to 9/10 or better men, but men will message anyone with a pulse which in turn inflates female expectations. Many women only ever join dating sites as an ego boost, with no intention…
"I had the idea that the way this could work is a totally automated match making system akin to Uber where you are penalised for not accepting matches made by the system. You don’t have to get married or anything, but if you don’t both turn up at the same GPS time space coordinates it counts against you.
Similarly, the system should require an up front ~$50 fee from both sexes per date. You don’t get it back if you stand up a date."
No woman alive would agree to this.
And, I'm sure there are women who sign up for dating apps for an ego boost and that's why they don't reply, but most are just overwhelmed by the shotgun approach some men take and end up not taking any of their responses seriously. Women often quit dating apps because of bad experiences, they're not going to agree to a date where they don't get to do their own vetting of the person they're meeting.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#38From what I can tell, people ARE starting these kinds of projects. They just don't get popular enough for you to notice.
If we search “dating app” on an App Store, wonder just how long it’ll let us scroll. Past a dozen apps with OP’s idea presumably.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#39It’s in the same vein as saying, “Why don’t we bring forums back?” Vast majority of people 'enjoy' the quick dopamine hit of swiping, matching, and trading cheesy pickup lines, even if they claim otherwise. They may complain, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want to explore alternatives. It doesn’t really matter that the older way may have been saner. Dating apps have been around long enough to become deeply ingrained, which makes it hard for any alternative paradigm to take hold, especially ones that have already faded away.
The only exception I’ve seen work is marriage-focused apps and services. This may be very India-specific, but the dating market felt far more balanced and serious in the matrimony space, provided you’re comfortable being evaluated on things like salary and eating preferences.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't we bring back old school OkCupid?
#40OkCupid's algo wasn't any good. The swipe thing actually made sense, and idk why it took so long to get there.