Never pay for online dating (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#241

Post by imiric » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

Cloudef wrote: post #142

mikepurvis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've already graduated university, aren't part of a religious community, and don't want to do the bar/club scene, what does that leave? Friends of friends, or family introductions? Activity groups like sports/dance? Your workplace, or the gym? Neighbours? Most of these are extremely hit and miss, and a lot of people have no interest in being hit on while trying to do their job or work out. Dating sites/apps abso…

Dating apps do not work because you are not actually present. You have the attention of hundreds of people at the same time, so unless you decide to meet up right away, the other party immediately loses interest. Most of the people are just looking for sex or something less serious, and the apps heavily paywall males. They are cancer. Meeting through friends is probably the safest, as that at least gives you some saf…

> Dating apps do not work

> unless you decide to meet up right away, the other party immediately loses interest.

I think you're contradicting yourself, and making an objective statement from your subjective experience.

Dating apps are best used to setup actual physical dates. They're the digital equivalent of making eye contact at a bar or party, and giving a stranger your contact information. All the while eliminating the uncertainty of whether the other person is even interested, based on initial physical appearance and whatever they decided to share in their profile.

> Meeting through friends is probably the safest

Sure, but that's always been the case. It's always been risky going on a date with a stranger, or a blind date. Dating apps make the blind date a bit safer, while substantially opening up the possible dating pool to beyond just via friends.

Are they predatory, full of dark patterns and exploit lonely men? Absolutely. But I'd still argue they're better than meeting a random person at the bar, evidenced by many people who do find suitable short or even long-term partners on them.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#242

Post by ThalesX » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #148

bearjaws wrote: post #102

They also had an amazing blog post about how dating profiles came down to ~85% how attractive you are (both men and women). Most people look at 3-4 images and pass, this probably was the inspiration for Tinder. One example of this was personality score, which they ended up removing. "In short, according to our users, “looks” and “personality” were the same thing". In this example it was just a profile picture with no…

A profile picture with no text implies confidence and knowing how attractive you are (other than being a bot of course)

This is funny, I recently created a new Tinder profile and for lack of inspiration I didn't fill anything in except some pictures. I'm getting a lot more swipes than when I nerded up my profile. Unfortunately, I'm looking for interesting conversation which 80% of pic-based 'swipes' don't really provide.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#243

Post by Arkhaine_kupo » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:35 PM UTC

kikokikokiko wrote: post #231

Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on and yet their sample was incredibly biased despite it being large. A big set of data still churns out bad results. Most of their blog posts did not show the data, how they normalised it, percentage of each group. They just run regression on it and anything wit…

So, after sampling the interactions of 1.51 million people, and analysing the amount of messages an average tall woman receives compared to an average short woman, the conclusion that "taller women, on average, are less attractive to the average male than short women" is invalid? Please, tell me how this is absurd, when it's basically what you see in real life. Or that men that make more money are more attractive to…

> Analysing the amount of messages an average tall woman receives compared to an average short woman, the conclusion that "taller women, on average, are less attractive to the average male than short women" is invalid?

It isn't invalid, but its also not science. If you have 1000 short girls and 3 girls over 6'4 well you got an issue of normalising values. Where variance of results are more affected near the edge cases than the median.

The problem is not the results, its that on a vaccum they are contextless, and that is what makes the silly fun data anlysis.

> Or that men that make more money are more attractive to women, on average?

Yeah because if they wanted to date someone broke they could find them outside. Online dating is a fraction of their total dating behaviour, therefore conclusions are not conclusive.

If you want actual studies about it, women prefer a stable job over wealth. Aka a dude with 100k normal salary has a better chance than an unemplyed dude with 1 million dollars. This is something that cannot be found through OkCupid cause networth isn't even a question or filter on their analysis.

> This delusion of denying facts

I am not denying facts, i have just done science past running a database through matlab.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#244

Post by VBprogrammer » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #31

VBprogrammer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is an alternative business model which would put users and the business on the same side. Could you put a lien against someone's marriage, such that in order to marry someone you meet on HappyDating.com you had to pay the outstanding debt? Anything less extreme?

> I wonder if there is an alternative business model which would put users and the business on the same side. Hookup apps. Apps for non-monogamous people. You're looking for repeat customers. The only other way is paying when the couple gets into something long-term, but the fee would probably be higher than people want.

Heterosexual non-monogamy is difficult for those people who aren't, let's say, conventionally attractive.

The people I knew who could pull it off didn't really need an app!

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#245

Post by btgeekboy » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

nemo1618 wrote: post #140

barbariangrunge wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t wait to see all our old private messages get leaked by some hack of the parent organization now too. Or for it all to just get sold to advertisers

I wish! After I met my (now-)wife on OkCupid, we deactivated our accounts so that we'd stop getting notifications. A few months later we wanted to revisit our first messages to each other -- only to find that OkC had already deleted them. I was pretty shocked at how eager they were to discard a few KB of potentially priceless ASCII. :(

I’m engaged now, and met my fiancée on a dating site. At the time, it made sense that I deleted my account, since we were exclusive, but now those first messages exist only as a memory. I’d love to have those again, but I’m happy that data is gone.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#246

Post by Double_a_92 » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

Yoofie wrote: post #97

EmilyHughes wrote: post #62

I don't get it. Why does no government anywhere run a non-profit dating site from tax-payer money when this is becoming the most popular way people are meeting? All the options people have are using toxic apps which entire business model is to undermine the self-esteem of young men and scamming them out of their money. And then people wonder where the mental health problems and mass shootings come from. I really don'…

> Why does no government anywhere run a non-profit dating site from tax-payer money Because its outside the scope & role of the government? > I really don't understand how this stuff is still not regulated anywhere This is a common theme I see in alot of discussions about everything. Do not confuse regulation with enforcement. Any regulation that is not enforced is useless, or it is used selectively (a.k.a "corruptio…

Future demographics are probably a pretty serious longterm issue..

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#247

Post by notch656a » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #238

blfr wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made a similar comment before[1] but this is exactly right. The price-to-benefit ratio for Tinder is incredible. You can literally fill your calendar with dates for months on a budget that would last a couple of decent drinks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30485955

Only if you've hit the genetic jackpot.

I've always wondered if online dating selects HARD (relatively to in-person invites) for looks. I don't look very pretty but when I was on the (IRL) dating scene I could get probably half the women I talked to out on a date if I really tried. Being fairly ugly I tried tender and OkCupid for a year or two and was lucky to have someone accept once every few months and I had a 100% no-show rate where the counterparty backed out. Online dating seriously hurt my self esteem until a few months after I stopped.

I gave up the apps and married someone meeting them the old fashioned way.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#248

Post by kikokikokiko » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #227

houstonn wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypergamy is nonsense? I think you're confusing an opinion or desired reality with data and observed reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy

Why link a page and not read it? In the "Mating preferences" blurb they discuss hypergamy as being reduced as gender equality reduces and even worse links to a study called "The end of hypergamy" where they discuss men stop dating down once women achieve educational parity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421994/ So yeah, if you come from a poor, unequal country women wanna marry and old rich university…

Yeah, everybody knows that what guarantees a successful marriage is a man that earns half of his wife. Just close your eyes and think of allllll the couples, from friends to family, where this dynamic worked so amazingly well.

Males find females, that are healthy and young, attractive - since they are the most likely candidates to have healthy offspring.

Females find males, that are capable of getting enough resources to sustain the offspring, attractive. And in the case of males, there is no age barrier per se that impedes reproduction, so it's expected to see couples of younger females and older males.

It's true for humans, it's true for chimps, it's true for dogs. Reality does not change just because you want it to. And it doesn't matter if we're talking about India in the 19th century or California in 2022. Women, ON AVERAGE, will find a rich guy more attractive than a bum, and men, ON AVERAGE, would find a 21 year old waitress hotter than a 55 year old Hollywood starlet.

It is what it is.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#249

Post by pathartl » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

nemo1618 wrote: post #140

barbariangrunge wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t wait to see all our old private messages get leaked by some hack of the parent organization now too. Or for it all to just get sold to advertisers

I wish! After I met my (now-)wife on OkCupid, we deactivated our accounts so that we'd stop getting notifications. A few months later we wanted to revisit our first messages to each other -- only to find that OkC had already deleted them. I was pretty shocked at how eager they were to discard a few KB of potentially priceless ASCII. :(

Luckily I was able to dump the SQLite db that Tinder used in the past when I met my SO

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#250

Post by ryeights » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #148

bearjaws wrote: post #102

They also had an amazing blog post about how dating profiles came down to ~85% how attractive you are (both men and women). Most people look at 3-4 images and pass, this probably was the inspiration for Tinder. One example of this was personality score, which they ended up removing. "In short, according to our users, “looks” and “personality” were the same thing". In this example it was just a profile picture with no…

A profile picture with no text implies confidence and knowing how attractive you are (other than being a bot of course)

>After we got rid of the two scales, and replaced it with just one, we ran a direct experiment to confirm our hunch — that people just look at the picture. We took a small sample of users and half the time we showed them, we hid their profile text. That generated two independent sets of scores for each profile, one score for “the picture and the text together” and one for “the picture alone.” Here’s how they compare. Again, each dot is a user. Essentially, the text is less than 10% of what people think of you.

Further down the page.