Because we have more money or we are more desperate?
Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
11–20 of 98 posts
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#12Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. Otherwise, there will be backlash, which is what has been happening on Twitter this morning. It's also worth nothing that price discrimination really doesn't work if it can easily be gamed. Many people create secondary Facebook profiles for Tinder; this implementation just ensures that there will be a lot more "27 year old…
> Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play.
While this specific pricing model seems odd to me, I don't think I agree with your general claim. I think everyone understands the iPhone product line, with different prices for different amounts of storage space. As far as I know, that works really well for Apple, yet it would be difficult to have a more blatant example of price discrimination.
edit: There are several people claiming that price discrimination requires the products to be completely identical. I maintain that is not how the term is used in economics. I replied with more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9135084
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#13Tinder is really messing this up hard. First this, and now I've run out of "likes" for 12 hours based on some new hard limit. I've never had any real success using Tinder, and I've only continually engaged because it's a mindless way to pass the time (playing God with acceptance/rejection is fun). Now, it's just yet another dating app that isn't worth paying for. Back to OKCupid, I guess.
OKCupid and Tinder (and Match) share the same owner, IAC.
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#14Because we have more money or we are more desperate?
Probably, yes - and yes.
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#15I really think this was the most boneheaded monetization plan I've seen in a while. This group is the flightiest, most experimental bunch of early adopters, and that kind of price tag is going to make them laugh out loud. It is ten times what I thought it was going to be. Limiting interaction with the app (driving users to the next service, conveniently located at the icon next door) was strike one. This is strike tw…
> I really think this was the most boneheaded monetization plan I've seen in a while.
If the goal is to actually make money and not just maximize their number of users, this could be a good thing. For people over 28 willing to pay, their odds of getting a date just went way up. And for people over 28 not willing to pay, it doesn't matter if they leave anyway. I'm not saying this definitely isn't going to be the next Digg 2.0, but I think success here is at least plausible.
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#16Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. Otherwise, there will be backlash, which is what has been happening on Twitter this morning. It's also worth nothing that price discrimination really doesn't work if it can easily be gamed. Many people create secondary Facebook profiles for Tinder; this implementation just ensures that there will be a lot more "27 year old…
> this implementation just ensures that there will be a lot more "27 year olds" on the service. which ultimately hurts the service as nobody will be able to know who is 27 and who is older than 27
Yes exactly. This is a really badly designed implementation of a pricing tier strategy.
It also seems likely that by incentivizing users to lie about their age, Tinder will create an entire zone of fake ages between something like 25-27, where users do not want to be grouped in with all of the "27 year olds" so they go year(s) lower. Thus, eliminating user trust for ages of anyone at numbers approaching 27.
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#17Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. Otherwise, there will be backlash, which is what has been happening on Twitter this morning. It's also worth nothing that price discrimination really doesn't work if it can easily be gamed. Many people create secondary Facebook profiles for Tinder; this implementation just ensures that there will be a lot more "27 year old…
> Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. While this specific pricing model seems odd to me, I don't think I agree with your general claim. I think everyone understands the iPhone product line, with different prices for different amounts of storage space. As far as I know, that works really well for Apple, yet it would be difficult to have a more blatant example…
I think what he means is charging different prices for different users for the same product.
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#18Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. Otherwise, there will be backlash, which is what has been happening on Twitter this morning. It's also worth nothing that price discrimination really doesn't work if it can easily be gamed. Many people create secondary Facebook profiles for Tinder; this implementation just ensures that there will be a lot more "27 year old…
> Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. While this specific pricing model seems odd to me, I don't think I agree with your general claim. I think everyone understands the iPhone product line, with different prices for different amounts of storage space. As far as I know, that works really well for Apple, yet it would be difficult to have a more blatant example…
"Price discrimination" means charging different users different prices for the same product/service. Apple charging different prices for different amounts of storage space is not price discrimination.
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#19Tinder is really messing this up hard. First this, and now I've run out of "likes" for 12 hours based on some new hard limit. I've never had any real success using Tinder, and I've only continually engaged because it's a mindless way to pass the time (playing God with acceptance/rejection is fun). Now, it's just yet another dating app that isn't worth paying for. Back to OKCupid, I guess.
OKCupid and Tinder (and Match) share the same owner, IAC.
and OKCupid engages in price discrimination too, and has done for many years. The price you'll see for OKCupids premium service ("A-list") is based on a variety of factors: attractiveness, age, location, gender... an attractive woman will pay ~$3.99 per month whereas an unattractive middle aged man will pay ~$20.
Re: Tinder to charge older users more for premium facilities
#20Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. Otherwise, there will be backlash, which is what has been happening on Twitter this morning. It's also worth nothing that price discrimination really doesn't work if it can easily be gamed. Many people create secondary Facebook profiles for Tinder; this implementation just ensures that there will be a lot more "27 year old…
> Price discrimination only works if people can't easily identity that discrimination is in play. While this specific pricing model seems odd to me, I don't think I agree with your general claim. I think everyone understands the iPhone product line, with different prices for different amounts of storage space. As far as I know, that works really well for Apple, yet it would be difficult to have a more blatant example…
Price discrimination is when a business charges different prices to different groups of consumers for the same product or service.
Charging different prices for similar goods is not pure price discrimination.