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Never pay for online dating (2010)

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Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#361

Post by karpierz »

londons_explore wrote: post #334
karpierz wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This model ignores a key incentive: dating apps that don't successfully match won't be used. So at best, the developer is incentivized to have the user find someone to date in the short term and have the relationship fail in a manner that doesn't reflect poorly on the dating site. And it's not really feasible for the dating site distinguish between "will successfully date for a few months" and "will successfully date…

> it's not really feasible for the dating site distinguish between "will successfully date for a few months" and "will successfully date for a lifetime". I think it is feasible for a dating site to figure that out, given enough data. And I think the 'few months' figure is probably too high - they want to match people who will go on a few dates or a one night stand, then return to the app. It's a pretty damn strong si…

> I think it is feasible for a dating site to figure that out, given enough data.

I've worked on the developer-side of this; I assure you, it's not. It's hard enough to predict if people will exchange messages with any reasonable precision + recall.

> It's a pretty damn strong signal when a user matches with someone, exchanges phone numbers, then deactivates their account. The ML algorithms will be trained to do everything possible to avoid that outcome.

Yeah, any dating site that does this is doomed to irrelevance.

If it were as easy to make a successful dating site by just optimizing for that signal, you should really do it. Match will acquire you for millions - billions, and the core code is relatively simple. You could get it running in under a week. Get some VC funding, do a gradual roll out onto a few colleges, you'll be a multi-millionaire by Spring.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#362

Post by yibg »

Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #74
houstonn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More Orwellian still, they edited articles that contained data inconvenient to the politically correct narrative and elite ideology. Edit: Here's an example. “I’m bisexual.” REALITY: 80% of self-identified bisexuals are only interested in one gender. People who describe themselves as bisexual overwhelmingly message either one sex or the other, not both as you might expect. https://web.archive.org/web/20170307114207/h…

Whats inconvinient to the pollitically correct narrative is people with 0 scientific literacy making bold claims about society based on surveys on extremely sampled social studies. Doing a study on how "dateable" black women are based on a specific dating app in 2010 is like making claims on everyones eating habits based on a survey on a Burger king drive through. It will probably not be a very good survey. They also…

I don't think anyone ever claimed this represented the overall population. It's clearly the data set for OkCupid users, which may be a decent proxy for online dating users. Unless there is any reason to doubt the accuracy of the data presented, I don't see the problem. Black women on OkCupid are not as desirable as white women. We may not like the results, but doesn't make it invalid.

To use your analogy, if 95% of people going through burger king drive through prefers Coke vs Pepsi, that's relevant data for that purpose.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#363

Post by feoren »

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…

> Do not confuse regulation with enforcement. Any regulation that is not enforced is useless, or it is used selectively (a.k.a "corruption"). Adding more rules wont solve anything.

This is such a weird take when you think about it. It's like saying "people can just run traffic lights; therefore, adding more traffic lights cannot prevent accidents." Okay, well, preventing people from running traffic lights is just a separate issue that should also be solved if it's a problem. The answer isn't to stop putting up traffic lights! And it doesn't follow that some people not following the rules means rules are worthless. Besides, different governments (and different agencies within governments) have vastly different levels of "teeth". I know it's easy to get jaded seeing all the regulatory capture in the U.S., but that's not the entire world. Even in the U.S. some regulations are rigorously enforced, e.g. FAA regulations.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#364

Post by watwut »

yibg wrote: post #362
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats inconvinient to the pollitically correct narrative is people with 0 scientific literacy making bold claims about society based on surveys on extremely sampled social studies. Doing a study on how "dateable" black women are based on a specific dating app in 2010 is like making claims on everyones eating habits based on a survey on a Burger king drive through. It will probably not be a very good survey. They also…

I don't think anyone ever claimed this represented the overall population. It's clearly the data set for OkCupid users, which may be a decent proxy for online dating users. Unless there is any reason to doubt the accuracy of the data presented, I don't see the problem. Black women on OkCupid are not as desirable as white women. We may not like the results, but doesn't make it invalid. To use your analogy, if 95% of p…

I have seen people making that claim repeatedly on HN.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#365

Post by conductr »

btbuildem wrote: post #346
bartimus wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's still a void for a dating service to be filled?

From an end-user perspective? Desperately so. I think the biggest obstacle to solving the Dating App problem is the onboarding.

I’ve been married since before Tinder so never used it. But I think the “Dating App problem” is something of a head scratcher. The reason the apps all have problems is because Dating is the problem. It’s hard. Always has been. Finding a lifelong partner, very hard.

I might be wrong but these types of conversations about how bad the apps are make me think y’all are expecting some sort of technological easy button. It will never exist. These companies are probably making it worse because of their profit motive but there’s definitely a reason nobody has “solved” dating.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#366

Post by maerF0x0 »

welshwelsh wrote: post #131
romankolpak wrote: post #82

Related personal anecdote: I am experimenting with Tinder subscription at the moment, and it feels incredibly exploitative. When you make a profile, matches are frequent and you can tell that you show up for people. However it gradually falls down with time, and the only predictable and obvious way to get back up is to pay for Boosts and/or Priority Likes. Right now my 6-month old profile gets ZERO likes outside of t…

Honestly, I am ok with this system. Paying a couple dollars for a matchmaking service isn't a big deal. If you go to bars instead you will pay way more. An introduction to a potential partner is worth at least $50 in my opinion, if anything Tinder is too cheap. There are too many guys on tinder and most of them are not serious, mindlessly swiping as a way of wasting time. If you filter out the free users and only mat…

IMO if the business model is to pay for impressions, I wish they'd be up front and just state and charge price per mille (or hundred or whatever). Instead you get an ambiguous "boost" with no accountability/metrics about what even happened? They could literally show you to no one and say "Oops, guess your profile sucks!"

The match rate thing is also kind of a lark because you don't care about matches. You care about matches with people you want to match with... in fact that kinda understates the ultimate goal -- you care about matches with someone who would be good for you (and you for them)... everything else is just vanity.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#367

Post by mikepurvis »

mattmaroon wrote: post #349
edude03 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it Logan Ury? If so I think that’s part of a much more complicated and nuanced discussion on self worth, self reflection, knowing what you want etc more than anything specific to “apps”

I think the teacher of the class was female but I’m not certain! Honestly I’ve seen some of the profile transformations she’s done and they’re good. They got great results. And there’s nothing magical about them, just some good insights.

I can't claim to be any kind of expert, but there are a number of TikTok accounts that get into this kind of thing, like Eric Explains. One of the biggest principles is that many women come to an environment like a dating app with a lot of preconceived notions about the men they're going to find there— that they're all going to be sleazes, pathetic, desperate, bland, immature, out of shape, whatever.

So your #1 goal with a profile is to use the pictures to tell a story that challenges these preconceptions. For example:

- Overall, favour photos that other people took of you over selfies (communication: I have good people in my life and am not looking for a support system)

- A picture of you being domestic, like cuddling your pet, cooking, or even cleaning (communication: I have my shit together, can take care of myself, and am not looking for a substitute mom)

- A picture of you doing something active that you love (communication: I already have interesting passions and will have worthwhile things to talk about)

- A picture of you giving a presentation (communication: I'm a leader, people listen to me when I speak)

- A picture of you in a suit at an event (communication: I clean up nice, I get invited to fancy parties)

- A picture of you in an exotic location (communication: I travel and have varied experiences)

But the main thing is that the pictures tell a story far more than the words do, so use the pictures. Don't make the words a bland list of assertions about your personality, instead use that space to tell a joke or give a conversation prompt.

And then there's a few sort of obvious turn-offs to avoid, like the shirtless bathroom selfie, the fish pic, the pic with your ex, the joke that you're willing to lie about how you met. All of that just makes you blend in with the crowd rather than stand out.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#368

Post by leeroyjenkins11 »

jrgoff wrote: post #147
tsumnia wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their articles were really interesting too; its sad Match took all of them down. One of the ones I distinctly remember was about the right profile pictures. Its been years, but I clearly remember for men it was something along the lines of "full body, outdoor picture, while shirtless looking away from the camera"

Photofeeler did a post about trying replicate some of this and apparently some of okcupid's results were probably pretty questionable: https://blog.photofeeler.com/okcupid-is-wrong-about-smiling-...

I would say a study done in 2020 is obviously going to have different results than 2010. You have 10 years of difference and changes in how people interact online. You also have different apps that fill certain niches. Shirtless may work on some platforms and not others. Selection by women may have changed because there are so many options, there may be finer selection criteria they use now that wasn't as common in that era.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#369

Post by maerF0x0 »

karpierz wrote: post #154
londons_explore wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is worse than that... The app/site developers interests are directly opposing the users interests. The user (perhaps) wants to find a lifelong partner, and never use dating apps again. The site developer wants users to never find a lifelong partner, and to spend months/years returning to the app to find new candidates. In my experience, the developer usually wins - some users on dating sites have been the…

This model ignores a key incentive: dating apps that don't successfully match won't be used. So at best, the developer is incentivized to have the user find someone to date in the short term and have the relationship fail in a manner that doesn't reflect poorly on the dating site. And it's not really feasible for the dating site distinguish between "will successfully date for a few months" and "will successfully date…

> dating apps that don't successfully match won't be used.

This isn't entirely true. A portion of the user base uses it almost entirely for entertainment and validation. I'd suspect it's a sizeable portion at that.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#370

Post by AdrianB1 »

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 when this is becoming the most popular way people are meeting?

Popular does not mean effective. Online dating is the most toxic way of dating invented, so why would the governments contribute?

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