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How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

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Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#101

Post by LtWorf »

water9 wrote: post #41
latchkey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often those settings are ignored or fuzzy. Tinder also doesn't show you what someone else's settings are, so you can't game that. When I'd set my age ranges to 30+, I'd still see people younger than that because the person on the other end would put older ranges in. It is kind of a two way fuzzy search engine. I built a super popular dating app right before Tinder came onto the market... our search was intentionally…

No, it’s not. You’re either both in each other’s ranges or one of you has the selection that says sometimes show people outside this range

I worked for a dating app.

They are scum.

Having worked there I could game their algorithms quite well.

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#102

Post by pixel_tracing »

It’s quite outright torturous.

During the first year of COVID in San Francisco I had a date with a girl who I found completely annoying, she was rude to the waiting staff and insisted on finding “sugar daddy.” I couldn’t believe I was listening to the delusional beliefs this woman had, especially regarding she lied to me about her career after I sat down with her.

I told her exactly how I felt about her and that she really needs to fix her attitude towards people and men, and that I’m done with the date. I left, and never contacted her again.

Coincidentally the next day my tinder account got flagged and banned. I knew it was something to do with her and she was spiteful (though I couldn’t prove it), but the timing was impeccable. Someone had filed a report against me and the automation system at Tinder wouldn’t allow me to speak to anyone.

I couldn’t find a partner and every bar / club / restaurant / location in the city was closed for MONTHS! Tinder was literally exiling me to my room and closing off dating matches (I realize there are other apps but the pool is huge on tinder and I always found the most matches there and best outcomes for my lifestyle).

I think this should be against some policy or something. If folks just understood the isolation I felt those months, going from meeting women every week to 0 was very bad on my mental state.

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#103

Post by WorldMaker »

tivert wrote: post #92
coldcode wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Expedia owning many of the familiar travel brands: in reality they are all serving up the same content, but with different marketing, yet many people think it's a different company. You might think a brand is different and it might appeal to a different clientele but underneath its the same entity making all the decisions. It allows the brand to target different people without confusing everyone with a sing…

> It allows the brand to target different people without confusing everyone with a single brand saying different things; yet still allow for economies of scale. Great business for them, may seriously suck to be a customer since the alternatives are potentially no better if you don't like one. It also allows them to capture the money of disgruntled customers. Someone who has a terrible experience with (say) Tinder may…

Relatedly, there has been a controversial dehumidifier recall recently due to how likely they are to catch fire. The recall impacts every dehumidifier made by Gree Electric Appliances between 2011 and 2014. That company sold the same basic dehumidifiers under the surface under at least 42 models under 5 different brands. Many of them look very different from each other, but functioned the same and exhibit the same fire safety issues of the recall.

At least twice investigators thought they found all of the models and brands in play and then discovered even more. Plus, an older/related recall also still exists covering even more brands and models between 2005 and 2014.

One supplier, hundreds of models across dozens of brands. "Competition" at its finest.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/15-million-dehumidifiers...

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#104

Post by latchkey »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #97
latchkey wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met my ex-wife on Match. Things didn't work out in the long run (10 years) between us for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with online dating. But, I certainly know that if I had lied initially, it would have never worked from the start. Your attitude on this matter ("play to win" and "work on your sales skills") is what makes the whole scene really horrible. I feel for your partner, I wonder if they reali…

Married 15 years, together 20. My partner is aware what she’s dealing with, she finds my approach attractive (fwiw) and will encourage me to flirt in front of her. I am kind but also confident and direct. Win friends and influence people sort of thing. I agree the dating marketplace is terrible, but you can’t change it, you can only change how you operate within in to arrive at a desired outcome. Would you own a busi…

I am glad it works for you. I suspect you’re in the minority.

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#105

Post by toomuchtodo »

latchkey wrote: post #104
toomuchtodo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Married 15 years, together 20. My partner is aware what she’s dealing with, she finds my approach attractive (fwiw) and will encourage me to flirt in front of her. I am kind but also confident and direct. Win friends and influence people sort of thing. I agree the dating marketplace is terrible, but you can’t change it, you can only change how you operate within in to arrive at a desired outcome. Would you own a busi…

I am glad it works for you. I suspect you’re in the minority.

40-50% of first marriages fail. 60%+ of second marriages fail. This doesn’t account for relationships that never get to marriage and still fail.

That is to say that most relationship success is timing, luck, and emotionally healthy enough people (have to love yourself first before you can love someone else in a healthy way). I wish I had more actionable advice, but I don’t. Be a decent person, sell yourself, and get in front of as many (emotionally healthy) potential partners as possible. That’s it. I agree I am in the minority. I recognize luck for what it is, but try to encourage everyone to get more dice rolls in (see: this sub thread). I wish you luck and happiness.

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#106

Post by captainbland »

lapcat wrote: post #99
captainbland wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worth remembering that actually only a minority of people with a partner found that partner through an app/dating site, even among relatively young cohorts. The only thing there is a monopoly over is the digital part but that's strictly optional. https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/articles-reports/...

Here's some more comprehensive data from the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findi... I'm not arguing that the dating apps are particular good or successful. I wouldn't be complaining about Match Group if they were. In fact, there's been a rising share of people who are unpartnered: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-... In another comment, I talked about societal c…

There's a few things going on here: a lot of young and LGB single people are using the apps but despite that most of those people who do get a partner still aren't actually meeting that partner through an app - about 20% for the youngest age group listed did. This isn't insignificant but 80% of that group did not meet their partner through an app still.

While the amount of users of that group are high, most of them are still ultimately going to meet their future partner through other avenues. It's worth highlighting that by definition most of them are unsuccessful at that point. It might be that actually one of the apps' main functions for some people is simply to give people some common ground as they exchange grievances about the experience...

On the amount of people in relationships, the data only seems to account for cohabiting and married couples, everyone else seems to be grouped into 'unpartnered'. As such this could also be reflective of changes in living circumstances - more young people still living with parents for example which may reduce opportunities for cohabiting. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/09/04/a-majorit...

In any case I agree with you that something is going on there but I still don't think that apps represent a good solution for most people.

My personal experience was that online dating was a disaster that (temporarily, fortunately) ruined my self-esteem and my best luck always came when I wasn't 'trying' to date at all.

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#107

Post by WorldMaker »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #87
coldcode wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Expedia owning many of the familiar travel brands: in reality they are all serving up the same content, but with different marketing, yet many people think it's a different company. You might think a brand is different and it might appeal to a different clientele but underneath its the same entity making all the decisions. It allows the brand to target different people without confusing everyone with a sing…

I've been thinking of late that we need to add some sort of five year sunset rule about brands and acquisitions to antitrust laws. So after an acquisition the buyer has a couple of years before they have to stop using the acquired companies name and brand.

There used to be advertising transparency laws that advertised products had to mention the parent company of a brand.

These days you mostly see it voluntarily done when a company is afraid to sunset an ancient brand with good history but also wants their brand noticed and associated (things like "Columbia Pictures, a Sony Corporation"), but some of those sorts of disclosures in the past were required for certain forms of advertisement (even if just in fine print) and maybe it is time to go back to enforcing that sort of thing.

There is the "Lenovo strategy", where some of the companies do sunset the original brands once licenses become too expensive and they've established their own brand. Lenovo went from "IBM ThinkPad by Lenovo" to "Lenovo ThinkPad" over a relatively few years. I'm still curious if, among others, "GE Appliances, a Haier Company" is a short-term play of this sort with the end goal to drop the "GE Appliances" name and logo in a few years or if Haier is less confident in their own brand and will stick with the mouthful (and GE licenses) long term.

(The other example of Sony would probably be too much for American consumers if they killed Columbia and/or TriStar brands. There's a deep-seated stickiness to the old Hollywood studio brands. Amazon seems to have learned this lesson real quick post-MGM acquisition and backpedaled quite fast on dropping MGM branded stuff for the Amazon Studios brand. They've even backpedaled so hard that they resurrected the Orion brand decades after MGM mostly let it retire. It weirdly blew my mind seeing an Orion Pictures logo on a 2023 trailer for an upcoming film.)

(Though today with tools like Wikipedia more information of that sort is "easily" researchable than ever before. But truth in advertising laws have always said it is better to save the advertising reader/viewer the research work than to trust people will do the research.)

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#108

Post by WorldMaker »

commandlinefan wrote: post #55
lapcat wrote: post #26

> With the exception of Bumble and Grindr, almost every popular American dating app is owned by a single company called Match Group, including Hinge, Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and many others. This is truly a nightmare. How did we allow such a crucial human function, finding a mate, to become monopolized? Both Democrats and Republicans need to date (though maybe not each other), so the issue should…

> become monopolized OTOH, like all relatively simple apps, this ought to be trivially easy to create a competitor for, so it must not be economically feasible to do so (just like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit never got any competition no matter how user hostile they became). Why isn't there a free, non-evil Hinge competitor? Because it costs too much to run, and they have to do this to stay in business.

The arc of it seems to be that apps either die quickly seeing their best ideas cannibalized by Match Group (and can't compete with its network effects, its dark patterns, its massive budgets) or live long enough to become themselves the villains and eventually copy Match Group's dark patterns or simply just exit into Match Group.

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#109

Post by darth_avocado »

wvenable wrote: post #16
TrackerFF wrote: post #7

I downloaded Tinder right after I got single, back in 2015? It was glorious. It really did feel fun and exciting - I'm by no means a model-looking dude, but I got hundreds of matches in a fairly small place (think city with population of 50k), and people just felt more genuine and interested on the various apps back then. Next time around I tried Tinder et. al. was a couple of years later(2018/2019), and I immediatel…

The problem with all dating apps is the monetization. If you're truly successful on the app then you're no longer a customer. I really don't know the solution to this problem but until someone solves it all dating apps will devolve into dark patterns.

Monetization is pretty straightforward, annual subscriptions, with equal access. Plenty of people will always be looking for love.

I am shocked at some of the prices I saw people paying? $100+ dollars/month to get a reasonable match? How much more monetization do you need there? A $60/year Strava subscription has done more for my love life than this.

Re: How Hinge's algorithm decides who you date

#110

Post by lapcat »

captainbland wrote: post #106
lapcat wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some more comprehensive data from the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findi... I'm not arguing that the dating apps are particular good or successful. I wouldn't be complaining about Match Group if they were. In fact, there's been a rising share of people who are unpartnered: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-... In another comment, I talked about societal c…

There's a few things going on here: a lot of young and LGB single people are using the apps but despite that most of those people who do get a partner still aren't actually meeting that partner through an app - about 20% for the youngest age group listed did. This isn't insignificant but 80% of that group did not meet their partner through an app still. While the amount of users of that group are high, most of them a…

> There's a few things going on here: a lot of young and LGB single people are using the apps but despite that most of those people who do get a partner still aren't actually meeting that partner through an app - about 20% for the youngest age group listed did. This isn't insignificant but 80% of that group did not meet their partner through an app still.

The raw percentages are somewhat difficult to interpret for several reasons. 1) Many people on the apps are not looking for a partner, they're just looking for dates or hookups. In a sense, neither success nor failure of the apps are fully or accurately represented in the cited percentages. 2) The dating apps themselves are only a few decades old and have increased in usage over time, so anyone who has been partnered for a long time, before the existence and rise of the apps, needs to be ruled out beforehand from the data.

> I still don't think that apps represent a good solution for most people.

I didn't say they were. ;-)

> my best luck always came when I wasn't 'trying' to date at all.

Alas, luck is just that, something that can't be relied on, and only blesses the lucky.

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