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Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

nytimes.com

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Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#211

Post by ptah »

LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

i'm not a woman, but i've seen women getting spammed with dick pics leading many to stay away completely from these sites

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#212

Post by kilroy123 »

arkh wrote: post #207
LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

> I'd say it's about 80% male. It's more like most women will go for 20% of the men. If you're part of the 80% you'll feel alone. As an experiment just make a fake profile with some model's picture to discover how many women are around.

This is correct. It’s become a winner takes all situation.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#213

Post by mcv »

LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

I think the most effective way to stand out is for women to contact men. With men spamming all women with meaningless messages, there's little point for women to respond to men contacting them. But if a man received a message from a woman, it's more likely they're real and not a fake profile, and that they're actually interested.

But dating sites that create fake profiles and use all these dark patterns to try to con you into joining should simply be avoided like the plague. Nothing good can come out of those, and there's no point in rewarding bad actors with your money.

Articles exposing these bad dating sites serve a very important purpose here.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#214

Post by mcv »

arkh wrote: post #207
LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

> I'd say it's about 80% male. It's more like most women will go for 20% of the men. If you're part of the 80% you'll feel alone. As an experiment just make a fake profile with some model's picture to discover how many women are around.

Create a fake profile to prove these are not all fake profiles?

In any case, any site where the profile focuses primarily on your photo is probably going to see this going both ways: men going for the hottest women and women going for the hottest men.

If you focus more on people's interests, I'd expect you're going to see a very different pattern.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#215

Post by jorvi »

cameronbrown wrote: post #54
dvt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, so excuse the long post (maybe I'll write a blog post on it at some point): First, there's a clear (and artificial) skewing of supply-demand curves. There are probably like 30 (active) guys for every 1 (active) girl on these apps (looking at you, Tinder). This creates an imbalance where women are incredibly selective while men end up being incredibly non-selective (e.g. swipe right o…

> First, there's a clear (and artificial) skewing of supply-demand curves. What makes it artificial? Also, there's strong evidence that roughly twice as many women have reproduced than men across human history [0], so if we're reducing it to a number game women have always had the ability to be more picky than guys. What's different today is Tinder/OLD let's them access a much larger area, whereas in the past they wo…

> So to sum up my point, I'm struggling to see a solution here. Human nature can't be rewritten, no matter how hard we try.

You could write an algorithm that subtly punishes women for being too picky and at the same time punishes men for being unselective (only swiping right, then filtering later). Of course, as soon as it comes out that you are rebalancing the market that way no one will use your app anymore, but it would be a theoretical way to bring the numbers closer together.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#216

Post by lordgrenville »

Stratoscope wrote: post #148
vertex-four wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my market, eHarmony pretty blatantly advertises itself as the morality police type of Christian platform - so this sort of thing is implied.

Yes indeed, and I have no problem with their choice to serve only those who fit with their mission. If they had only been honest and up front about it, and as soon as I said I was "separated" they said "sorry, we're not the dating service for you", it would have been fine! I would have respected that and moved on. But when they actively lied to me by leading me through the entire onboarding process - when they knew f…

It may have been incompetence instead of malice (eg they only implemented the marital status filter a while after designing the onboarding form). Either way that sounds really annoying, though.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#217

Post by apexalpha »

There is only one universal law that applies to online dating, and that is: women don't need it as much as men.

For women, online dating just doesn't make sense. Even on Tinder, where the ratio is kinda okay, women are bombarded with messages and likes. To the point that they can't even respond to everyone even if they wanted to.

This means men are left with unresponsive women and just start to send cheaper pick up lines to more women faster. Thus continuing the cycle of women getting bombarded...

There was a blog post I read once where some employee used statistics from the dating site to show what the relationship between male and female profiles where, who had good chance of getting dates etc... Conclusion: it really doesn't work for 90% of men.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#218

Post by save_ferris »

mixmax wrote: post #208
LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

* I don't think this can be 'disrupted' either * Tinder disrupted the online dating scene by introducing the feature that you can only write someone after you've liked their profile, AND they've liked yours. That makes a huge difference, and solves the spam problem.

That may have solved the problem initially, but not forever.

I got back on Tinder about 6 months ago and bought a premium account after they kept waving the number of potential matches I had, only to discover that the vast majority of them (roughly 18 in 20) were 2,000+ miles away from me and looked like spam.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#219

Post by zapnuk »

mcv wrote: post #213
LeonM wrote: post #203

I've tried a number of dating websites in the past year, and all of them are like this. First and foremost: No matter how hard they try to hide it, the male/female balance on all straight dating sites is completely off. I'd say it's about 80% male. So most of them fill with fake accounts to get the balance backs. The matching algorithms don't really exist, they are extremely primitive and usually optimised for engage…

I think the most effective way to stand out is for women to contact men. With men spamming all women with meaningless messages, there's little point for women to respond to men contacting them. But if a man received a message from a woman, it's more likely they're real and not a fake profile, and that they're actually interested. But dating sites that create fake profiles and use all these dark patterns to try to con…

That's the idea behind bumble. AFAIK men and women rate each other similarly to Tinder (yes/no). However, when a match occurs, women have to send the first message.

This doesn't solve the gender inbalance though. This problem is much more difficult to solve, and requires further homogenization (?) of the male and female gender role.

This should be one of the more important challenges of our time. Lonelyness and sexual frustration have only negative impacts and are two accelerators for radicalization - which is a pressing concern in developed countries.

Re: Match.com Used Fake Ads to Swindle Users, F.T.C. Says

#220

Post by strenholme »

anon12345690 wrote: post #204
goatinaboat wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

potential matches were verified, including height, weight I am happily married now (met my wife through a mutual friend, the old fashioned way) so my experience of online dating may be obsolete but women on dating sites tend to be very specific about their partner’s height. And income, and what car he drives and a big shopping list of mainly physical and materialistic traits. If you could verify all of that you might…

yep its cause women dont have to do any work they just get chats all the time from guys but its so bad now because women are competing for the top 5% of men who are like models and everyone else gets no response

An honest question: Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? I keep hearing this claim, but I haven’t see any solid science or other data supporting it.

My understanding is that women are more picky than men about who they find attractive, but less picky about who they will message and respond to.

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