Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 70 posts

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

#41

Post by hn993302 »

danvayn wrote: post #8

Okcupid still exists and operate in this manner. So do other platforms. The reason why it does not proliferate like it used to has to do with the short attention span of the population, and in general, the attention economy. You can’t have people answer 1100 questions anymore. You can, however, put pretty people on the app for them to swipe left or right, and that drives people way more than Doing work to get a match…

Anyone serious is willing to fill that stuff out, and I did when I was single. Those sites aren't popular because they don't work very well.

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

#42

Post by eru »

Barbing wrote: post #38
eru wrote: post #24

From 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.

You could also have a website, not only an App.

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

#43

Post by Conscat »

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…

There exist hundreds of fly by night matchmaking apps, but most people can only name about half a dozen off hand.

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

#44

Post by applfanboysbgon »

jiggawatts wrote: post #11

An 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…

A man trying to design a dating system to force women into dates is hilarious. One problem you seem not to have considered: what's in it for the woman? Why would she ever agree to this?

To say nothing of how you would be excoriated in the media the first time a woman was assaulted and reported that she had bad vibes but felt pressured into it by your app. And that's if you didn't just create the perfect serial killer pipeline. This is literally the worst PR nightmare of an idea I've heard in my entire life. And, just, you know, bad from an actual human perspective too.

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

#45

Post by doctorpangloss »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #12

The amazing thing is that people still cite the old stats they published as that remains the only significant body of insight into the dynamics of human behavior in this realm.

the reality is that those stats were flawed in numerous ways. this is expected, they were never subject to peer review.

for example: ok cupid and tinder, during the times that christian rudder was blogging about them, never reported on the actual ratio of active male to active female users. this made it impossible to do any comparisons over time, it's like reporting only numerators in the absence of denominators.

a second example: when tinder's 2018 interracial dating stats were compared to okcupid's 2011 stats, there was no change, despite real preferences having shown that something like 40 percentage points more people were comfortable with non-same-race dating over that decade. rudder kind of failed the obvious interpretation, that the apps and/or data collection were broken, and instead talked about some conspiracy of the surveys being wrong.

i think there was a lot of other stuff broken with it.

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

#46

Post by pessimizer »

I've been waiting for AI matchmakers. Not just for dating, but for p2p sales, now that ebay has discouraged low-volume sellers and everything has moved behind the facebook wall with facebook marketplace.

One of the problems with OKCupid was that they never got the tests to be very predictive in matchmaking. An AI matchmaker could simultaneously be shopping every member of a site to every other member, devising and administering and evaluating the effectiveness of tests itself, and acting as a go-between before people wanted to make direct contact. The main thing is that it wouldn't be a matter of seeing a "match percentage" (which often led to disappointment because sometimes he just likes blondes and she just likes tall guys) but something more opaque and optimizing, responsive to feedback.

Likewise with facebook, an AI sales matchmaker could be given accounts to your messageboard, discord, mastodon instance, etc., follow "thing wanted" and "thing for sale" threads and conversations, and initiate and mediate contact between likely matches (across different points of contact.) The fantasy about this is that it gets the commissions down to 4% again - I think ebay is pushing 15% at least, for doing less than it ever did. Ebay has also figured out its format fairly rigidly, where an AI matchmaker could be more flexible and interactive - ferrying and even anticipating requests for more info.

AI employment matchmakers have to be around already.

I've been expecting to see some of this stuff pop up, and have been surprised not to have.

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

#47

Post by Conscat »

shubhamjain wrote: post #39

It’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 in…

Is Jeevansathi really that different mechanically from a casual dating service? I don't think it has a literal swiping motion (many dating apps don't either) but I've heard complaints that modern matrimony apps are even too similar to dating apps before.

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

#48

Post by nl »

Who is this "we" you talk about?

There are hundreds (thousands?) of dating sites. The problem isn't the technology, it's the fact it's a two sided market place, and cold starts are hard for two sided marketplaces.

I much prefer the swiping apps to something that tries to capture the essence of me in a survey.

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

#49

Post by Conscat »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #36

The 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 anot…

> If people find a life partner they drop off the site, and you constantly have to find new users to replace them ... As a result, some of the less-scrupulous sites purposely make it less likely that you will see people who seem like great matches

I've often heard this sentiment, but I'm very skeptical. Firstly, most users in my experience seem to prefer casual relationships even if that's not what their profile indicates. Dating apps are also one of the highest vectors for cheating today, and one man even confessed to me on our second date that he has a wife in Rajasthan.

But I think the fact that the major apps' user bases all grow over time indicates they have a naturally healthy replacement rate. People turn 18 every day and desire a partner. People break up every day, etc.

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

#50

Post by nl »

jiggawatts wrote: post #11

An 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…

> 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

Is this a SF thing?

I'm maybe a 7/10 and I've never had trouble getting dates in any city I've lived in or traveled through. I just put some effort into sound interesting, make sure my pics are the best I can find and it's fine.

But I've never tried dating in SF and I've heard the gender balance can make it harder?

Post reply on HN