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The dating app paradox

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Re: The dating app paradox

#251

Post by gnicholas »

sweetro17 wrote: post #248

Former dating app founder here - lots of thoughts on the space - feel free to AMA High level though, there's a lot of human behavior which makes dating frustrating with or without apps. At it's core, even in the best case, dating has A LOT of rejection. Dating apps introduce more opportunity for incremental validation (you got liked!) but also incremental rejection (you got ghosted!) and the sheer number of interacti…

Why do you think apps don't do (1), if it would benefit dating? Because people would just choose to use different apps because of the perceived quality issue you mentioned?

To what extent do you think the core issues are driven by the different goals of men/women, and the dynamics they create?

Re: The dating app paradox

#254

Post by amatecha »

prepend wrote: post #226
Syonyk wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to for-profit, ad-driven, surveillance capitalism companies with a demonstrated interest in short term profits and hoovering all the data they can? Yeah. I'd be willing to take that risk. Don't get me wrong. I don't think the government is a good group to do this. I just think they're a less-bad group than the usual parties.

I have never used a government web site that was better than a marginal ad driven site. I can barely pay my trash bill and can’t imagine a dating app run by any aspect of US federal, state, or local government.

Enjoy:

https://www.canada.ca/en.html / https://design.canada.ca/

https://www.government.nl/

https://www.nasa.gov/

https://vancouver.ca/

https://richmond.ca

https://www.gov.uk/

Re: The dating app paradox

#255

Post by Meekro »

ravenstine wrote: post #100
garciasn wrote: post #32

Originally responding to a flagged comment that stated you were weak for not talking to people in person: You’re not wrong, but the in-person dating pool is small and the stakes are high. I am very recently divorced, dating single for the first time in nearly 25 years after finding my wife stole $300K from the family and had been carrying on an affair for 18 months while I thought our finances and love were at an all…

You're not wrong, but I believe there are things people can do to find better "fishing holes" if they think outside the box. I grew up in Los Angeles and have never actually felt at home here. Should it be any surprise that my experience dating here has been poor? I'm certainly not a hottie, but I am pretty sure I'm not ugly, either. Given all the examples of male attractiveness I've seen, I think I'm a low 7 on the…

I did similar census research back in my early 20's (more than 10 years ago at this point) and concluded that certain parts of D.C. are the best place to be if you're an 18-34 single man. Then I happened to meet someone randomly (now married) before I had a chance to put this plan into action.

I'd be fascinated if someone who couldn't get a date in LA moved to DC and blogged about the results.

Re: The dating app paradox

#256

Post by notso411 »

sweetro17 wrote: post #248

Former dating app founder here - lots of thoughts on the space - feel free to AMA High level though, there's a lot of human behavior which makes dating frustrating with or without apps. At it's core, even in the best case, dating has A LOT of rejection. Dating apps introduce more opportunity for incremental validation (you got liked!) but also incremental rejection (you got ghosted!) and the sheer number of interacti…

[dead]

Re: The dating app paradox

#257

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

breather wrote: post #76
Spastche wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OkCupid used to have a bunch of blog posts with numbers about how much a difference a good profile and good pictures make, but I think they took them down when Match bought them out. I haven't been on any dating sites in a few years but the amount of people with garbage profiles and bad pictures (lighting / posture being the biggest and easiest issues to fix) is crazy high.

OkCupid used to be the best because they actually tried to match you up on common interests and relevant dating questions. Last I heard that had been ripped out and it was just another tinder clone emphasizing photos and swiping. Should be a crime to ruin an app that useful.

OkCupid was indeed the absolute best.

The questions thing made it possible to see answers to dealbreakers before ever sending a message.

I met my current wife on OkCupid back in 2010. It was great. My big deal breakers were that I wanted a non-smoker that didn't want kids. OkCupid matched us at like 98%, and having now been together for 14 years, I'd say that match was pretty spot on.

Re: The dating app paradox

#258

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

sweetro17 wrote: post #248

Former dating app founder here - lots of thoughts on the space - feel free to AMA High level though, there's a lot of human behavior which makes dating frustrating with or without apps. At it's core, even in the best case, dating has A LOT of rejection. Dating apps introduce more opportunity for incremental validation (you got liked!) but also incremental rejection (you got ghosted!) and the sheer number of interacti…

Thank you for showing up, it would be great to hear more of your input. #1 is so, so key. Dating apps made me feel terrible about myself and invisible (“why am I getting no likes?” — for context I’m a guy).

It wasn’t until I realised I had no idea who my profile was actually being shown to that it all started to make sense and I realised that’s the lever that apps can pull to make money.

Fundamentally though I think your comment about human behaviour is spot-on and at the end of the day my belief is that dating is something you just can’t short-cut with technology. Parabox of choice and low investment are garbage-in, garbage-out so to speak. You can’t ‘Uber Eats magic food box’ dating.

Re: The dating app paradox

#259

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

65 wrote: post #78

I bet if you made dating apps paid upfront at a lower price than premium subscriptions (e.g. $10/month rather than $20/month on other apps), you'd still get a ton of users as people are willing to pay for a way to find love, and you'd get your much desired revenue. And you wouldn't have to deal as much with enshittification. The only other problem to solve is the 90/10 rule - where 90% of the women are only intereste…

I think you've missed the point entirely.

Charging a subscription at all creates a perverse incentive to never give you a good match. As soon as you find a good match, you cancel your sub and stop paying.

Re: The dating app paradox

#260

Post by roenxi »

Exoristos wrote: post #115
not2b wrote: post #103

The fact that one company repeatedly bought out its competition and now owns, according the the article, 45 dating apps probably has a lot to do with why they suck. Instead of competing by trying to be better, just buy out the rivals, gut them, and make everything worse. As long as the dominant player has lots of capital to buy any upstarts and the regulatory environment lets them do it, it can be an easier way to ma…

As well as regulating them, Western governments might want to actually fund high-quality, not-for-profit dating systems of some kind. Improved health for citizens, lessened extremism, not to mention possibly boosted population growth could result.

There are more fundamental questions here of whether we want population growth. There seems to be a de-facto equilibrium springing up where wealthy countries quietly drop below replacement rate fertility and then migration from poorer regions happens.

It isn't immediately clear why this is a bad thing either. It seems intuitively fair, sustainable for the forseeable future, nobody is being forced to do anything against their will. Might be a good outcome. We can't all have growing populations; given the failures of manufacturing and energy policy in the west that would just lead to war and not having enough stuff to maintain a good lifestyle. We're already having trouble treading water when it comes to lifestyles, the last thing we need is more people.

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