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Never pay for online dating (2010)

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Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#371
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im tempted to make a service where you "deposit" some fee to subscribe, I then return part of the deposit to you on a monthly basis UNTIL you find a match on the site. If/once you find a match, I keep the rest. That should align goals for both the company and the partner seeker. EDIT: I'll be getting interest from the remainder your payment every month, as part of my profit scheme.

That's basically how many old human-labor matchmaking services work, insofar as the matchmaker gets a lump-sum payment at the beginning, and then spends an unbounded amount of labor doing the matchmaking until it works out. The matchmaker is incentivized to make a good match as efficiently as possible, as their profit-margin decreases linearly with the amount of time they spend on each "case."

That just sounds like the optimal solution is to do zero match-making labor.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#372

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'…

> undermine the self-esteem of young men and scamming them out of their money

Your first mistake was thinking that culture actually cares about this.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#373
post #12

OkCupid was bought by Match Group (who run almost all online dating sites, including Match, eHarmony, and Tinder) in 2011 and took down this post not long after. EDIT: the purchase was Feb 2011 [1] and the post was removed sometime between Jan 2011 [2] and Mar 2011 [3]. The rest of the blog was still up at the time [4]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2011/02/03/133456140/The-Last-Word-In-Bu... [2] https://web.archive.org/we…

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…

That implication is not logical. It is unreasonable to expect bisexuals to seek 50/50 gender split.

First, even if the actual attraction is same for both genders, it would be reasonable to expect bisexuals to seek opposite gender partners way more. Pretty much anyone who wants bio children need opposite sex partner. Pretty much anyone who don't want to deal with stigma around gayness too kuch will prefer opposite gender partner.

Second, bisexuality does not mean the attraction is same. It it fairly normal for bisexual to be attacted toany people from one gender and few from the other. It is also fairly normal foe them to have periods where they go for one gender only (either as conscious decision or not).

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#374
post #9

You, as a user of a dating app, are forever in a Nash Equilibrium with the dating app. When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. Therefore, everything the app does to help you find that person works directly against their own goals (user growth, “engagement”. subscriptions).

> When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. Therefore, everything the app does to help you find that person works directly against their own goals (user growth, “engagement”. subscriptions).

I'm not sure this is a fair modeling of how an app must work -- think of other industries that have extremely long sales cycles like, say, a realtor. Realtors are incentivized to match you to a home in such a manner that you might recommend them to others (and leave positive reviews), perhaps even use them again on the buy/sell side later on if their career is long.

Mind you Realtor is closest to professional match maker, but there's no reason an app couldnt take a middle ground between tinder and a highly involved match making service.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem is not dating, the problem is visibility. If you have tons of dates with tons of people you'll end up with someone who aligns with you (also will help you to learn what you really like) but these apps, as funny as it sounds, make you invisible by oversaturation. The amount of people is so huge that you spend less than a few seconds to decide if you want to match or not with someone and you never know about this person ever again.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#376

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'…

ISIS kinda did that, minus app. But the whole process was absurdly abusive and exploitative.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#377
post #107

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…

I don't see how the bisexual statistic is politically incorrect. It makes sense, considering the self-professed "bisexuals" I've known, which are well known as well in liberal-leaning circles: 1. Young women who pretend to be Bi to get more attention from Men 2. People who pretend to be Bi to avoid having to completely come out of the closet There's actually a saying in the gay community for the latter, "Bi now, gay…

Ugh, can we please stop with these damaging stereotypes about bi people?

There are plenty of acceptable ways to be bisexual, and while some people might fit the boxes you described, there are lots who don't.

These antiquated views are a large part of why, as a bisexual man, I mostly keep that to myself. Coming out is a big deal with a significant amount of associated emotional stress, doubly so when others try to rationalize how you're not a "real" bisexual ("you've only dated women, how can you be bi!?" or "oh you just like fooling around with dudes, you're not really bi" etc).

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, matching people well is hard I thought OKCupid did a great job. The second person I had a conversation with ended up becoming my wife. I really liked how OKCupid had a seemingly never-ending set of personality questions. You could answer none of them, or you could answer 100 of them, and the more you answered, the more confidence it had in its matching. You would even flag the importance of each question…

The questions were easily manipulated, so I would find someone I liked, changed all my answers so we would be either 96% match or lowest as possible because I would always get interest from them when they discovered who viewed them with the lowest score, usually they would send a message 'hey we are supposed to be enemies' which led to dates. They were community made questions so often very vague and not very reliabl…

This seems like it would be counterproductive.

If you had a low-percentage match, then I wouldn't think it would lead to a successful relationship. Gaming the percentage doesn't seem like it would have a good overall outcome.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#379
post #27
post #8

OkCupid used to have great engineering blogs often with an embedded and nuanced social commentary regarding the haves vs have-nots when it comes to the dating world. I believe at one point they divided users, or rather let them self-classify as A-team and B-team. Some would never even pass each other in the hallway based on this score and designation.

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"

Bumble will tell you which of your photos caused the most right swipes. In my case it was EXACTLY that: photo of me from behind shirtless while rock climbing, muscles on display.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#380

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…

The bisexual thing was pretty stupid and pretty revealing how much this blog post was bullshit, there was a bunch of reason why you would pick one gender as a bisexual, especially if online dating was just to meet more of the gender you wanted. But a bi dude, in 2010 you simply wouldn't get match with women if you write bi and plenty of gay dude would turn you down as well, so you just wouldn't bother and write gay o…

I clearly remember seeing women's profiles on both okc and Tinder that outright stated that they were not interested in bi men, but it's become rarer and rarer as time passes
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