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The dating app paradox

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Re: The dating app paradox

#351
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likeliest explanation is something on your profile makes MDs interested. For example a professional photo or something in your bio. Dating profiles have a limited set of info. Tiny tweaks can generate massive filter effects.

I have very little info. I like snowboards, standup, dogs, no description. I've put software engineer as a job. A couple years ago, I've A/B tested a few photos and with regular photo in a t-shirt I've only got a 2-4 likes per week. With a very similar photo to this one https://e0.pxfuel.com/wallpapers/29/831/desktop-wallpaper-io... I've got about 60 likes per week. I've thought that's a lot, but my ex told me she's…

Your Ex shared her hit ratio?

Re: The dating app paradox

#352
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a few European countries. But! Turns out it doesn't work. At all.

There should be an auction system for women to accept bids from the government to have kids. Might not get the type of parents society wants though. Or remove old age benefits, and make it so you might only get them directly from your kids if the kids are willing to support you. That would put long term consequences more into view and link costs and benefits.

Fuck that nonsense

Re: The dating app paradox

#353

An actually good date is worth potentially hundreds of dollars. I’m surprised there isn’t an app which meets this need. Yes there is “The League” but even that is just a more exclusive Tinder. No, make a matchmaker app for high paying customers that uses human curation. $500 for 3 dates.

It's also populated with the kind of people who pay $500 for 3 dates. Where's the appeal?

Re: The dating app paradox

#354
post #131
post #47

It's only a paradox until you realize that dating apps would shoot themselves in the foot with such a user-hostile model, trashing their brand. Hanlon's Razor directs us to the simpler explanation, which is that 90% of people on dating markets stay on dating markets; for which there are many, many highly personalized reasons. No dating app can fix its users' mindsets. There are three rules on dating apps, and they ha…

I really like this take, and I think it becomes extremely self-evident once you think about it for a bit, and talk with people who use dating apps IRL. "Dating apps are incentivized to keep people going on mediocre first dates" is such a tired take that would require such incredible sophistication and secrecy to pull off, "we can't make the matches too shitty, but we also can't make them too good, damn it Jim that ma…

> "we can't make the matches too shitty, but we also can't make them too good, damn it Jim that match was too high quality! now they'll stop paying!" its comic book villain stuff that cannot possibly explain why all of these apps suck.

No, they celebrate Jim—all the more if he is ordinary. It's like extreme couponing. The employees are genuinely cheering all the way to the bank when they see someone stack coupons to take home $20,000 of goods for only $300. Jim is the jackpot winner who invites all his unlucky friends.

Re: The dating app paradox

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've thought for a while now that it is a matter of national interest that your population couples up and has children Yeah, and many people in the US would be way more eager to do that had we had: - affordable housing - minimum wage that allows a single parent to support themselves - universal healthcare - mandated paid (and then, unpaid) parental leave - free childcare - substancial financial assistance to new par…

What tax rate do you think would be required to support those programs? How much would you have left over for raising children?

Ending wasteful spending of our tax dollars on gov contractors and letting them slide with huge overcharges, partly due to use-it-or-lose it budgeting, would help in a big way. Ending this shit budgeting practice would also be big.

Nevermind how much of our tax money goes towards the MIC. Rather see our money go towards these programs to help one another, over bombs to tear people apart.

Re: The dating app paradox

#356
post #335

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…

I recently wondered if AI could reasonably help with the awkwardness of such interactions. Could AIs do the awkward "is this a match" chatting anonymously and asynchronously? At least enough to conclude that a) If matched, these two people will likely reach their first date?

Yes this seems a totally reasonable approach, especially for those seeking long term arranged situations.

Re: The dating app paradox

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps are more transparent and equitable with how they expose profiles to other users. Don't bias toward highly liked people to increase perceived "quality" and shadow-hide show profiles that aren't liked often (and then ask them to pay lol). Show people more randomly, to better represent the true cross section of people on the app. This won't work; if you do this, you'll expose that the average online dating user i…

That's true. The sad reality about dating is that, for 99% percent of people, the partner that would be ideal for their tastes is "out of their league" so to speak. Humans have dealt with this reality of dating acting somewhat like a marketplace via mores of commitment, dating within social classes, condemnation of promiscuity, etc., but the human nature is still there. 10's want 10's, but 5's don't want other 5's, t…

A better, and tried and true solution, is ...

Alcohol. Helping ugly people reproduce for 10,000 years.

Re: The dating app paradox

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to dating app problems is actual human contact and throwing dating apps away. There is too much to get wrong with text only. Say the wrong thing online and you're done. Say the wrong thing in person and you can judge by facial expressions that you did and get a chance to correct a misunderstanding. You also get a chance to actually see what the other person subliminally likes and dislikes. All in real ti…

>The solution to dating app problems is actual human contact and throwing dating apps away. You aren't wrong, but you dramatically expand your dating options by using these apps. Just relying on your social circles is no different than remaining in the Middle Ages, just relying on a possible partner to show up at church or in the market. These apps spread your geographic and social opportunities, after that it's up t…

Read subreddits about dating and one will conclude that folks had much more success with their small social circles in the Middle Ages.

Re: The dating app paradox

#359
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just work - it’s any community venue that other party considers ‘essential’. Church, Dr’s offices, the gym, even a grocery store (if they ‘need it’) is a potential social ‘war zone’. Oh, and Reddit too.

Of course. It works at every level, all the way down to family. Other advice here suggests joining groups to meet people, but anytime you two are under the same reporting umbrella, you're vulnerable to malicious claims when they want to be rid of you. It's a sad state of affairs; I don't have a solution. Private citizens have no business running tribal justice systems. They used to call this form of abuse triangulati…

Near as I can tell, the way this usually works out is each gender ends up 'policing' itself to prevent the worst abuses.

In most environments, the older women police the younger women, older men police the younger men, etc.

Good luck doing that online though, or even in the current dynamic.

Re: The dating app paradox

#360
post #96

I'd like to bring back an article, more analytical on this paratox (the title, Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating, speaks a lot), from the old and now dead OkCupid blog. Funnily, this post was deleted just after the acquisition from the Match Group in 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20100821041938/http://blog.okcup... Latest discussion on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33163930

OkCupid really went to pot after the acquisition. You can't even browse/search any more. It's all Tinder-style matching. Is that what people really want? Online dating has gotten progressively worse over the past ~10 years. Even Craigslist personals is gone... Where can one meet a weirdo nowadays?

Met my partner in cl personals before it got shut down. Couldn't ask to be with a better person and we only saw each other's pics after writing back and forth for a bit.

Curious if text based dating sites exist any more or even text at first and photos only being shared after writing a while

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