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The dating app paradox

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Re: The dating app paradox

#371

Post by Spooky23 »

ed_balls wrote: post #312
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…

Is there a good analysis on what are the strongest predictors a good long term relationship? I've broke up with my ex a few months ago. She was an MD. Now a lot of my matches on Tinder are medical workers (over 30%) and I'm baffled why. tin_foil_hat_mode: He spoke with X last, recommend similar matches, he will come back, we will have recurring revenue.

Hospital medical people are pretty wild. Especially with all of the visiting nurses in some places… those folks are usually young, making too much money, and hitting anything that moves.

Re: The dating app paradox

#372

Post by Spooky23 »

Retric wrote: post #223
thriftwy wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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US conservatives have nothing to do with maintaining or returning to historic norms. From massive government subsidies and radical tax policies to wild spending sprees they’ve completely abandoned past stances only keeping the name. Similarly modern democratic politicians have no real connection to the glass of water theory and similar stances. Voters on each side are extremely diverse to the point there’s little uni…

They are authoritarian, not conservative.

The family values crap is just bread and circus for the religious zealots.

Re: The dating app paradox

#373

Post by shiroiushi »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #147
ben7799 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing has actually existed for a long time. They predated dating sites and had even worked off paper as far as I understand. The problem is they cost a lot more, and still had basically zero guarantee of any success. IIRC they were so expensive most single people would have trouble affording them. I met my wife on eHarmony back when it was relatively new. I had tried one of the non-computerized matching…

Speed dating has actually made a bit of a comeback: https://www.wsj.com/articles/speed-dating-online-apps-single... I highly recommend it to anyone looking and tired of apps. Even if you don’t like the speed dating format, you end up in a bar filled with people you know are single and looking.

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Re: The dating app paradox

#374

Post by shiroiushi »

unsignedint wrote: post #242
sctb wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that; of course it would've been be disheartening! If you're interested in sharing, I'm curious if you speculated at the time why that might have been the case (e.g. where you live, unique interests, etc.), and how you went about things after that experience.

My ethnic background, despite not imposing significant restrictions on my preferences, may have influenced the outcome. Additionally, my friend pointed out that my atheistic/agnostic stance could have further narrowed my potential pool of matches, possibly eliminating up to half of the available candidates.

Back in those days, eHarmony was almost exclusively for Christians, since it was founded by a devout Christian guy. It's a little less so these days, but it still has that reputation and the users there are much more likely to be religious than other dating apps I think. I tried it for a little while about 5 years ago and found it to be a waste of time and quit.

Re: The dating app paradox

#375

Post by throw310822 »

lmm wrote: post #365
throw310822 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange analysis. Considering that what people want from dating apps is sex and partners, and that both are easier to obtain from people of matching attractiveness. As a former dating app user, the possibility is something I never cared about: I cared about a date, there is a marketplace and- while I will try to find someone acceptable - certainly I'm not wasting my time chasing people out of my league. That produces…

> Considering that what people want from dating apps is sex and partners, and that both are easier to obtain from people of matching attractiveness. But people don't have an accurate perception of matching attractiveness. The average person is a 5 who thinks they're an 8. And they've been looking at celebrities rather than average people, so if you match them with a 5 then they'll think that's a 3.

And yet the overwhelming majority of people of average attractiveness have mated and formed couples and married since forever. So that's possible. If an app is not able to match them, must be a failure of the app, not of nature.

Re: The dating app paradox

#376

Post by nradov »

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…

I am married so outside the target customer base, but do you think there is a market opportunity for a dating app with some sort of built in coaching service? Based on complaints I hear it seems like a lot of younger people are so awkward and lacking in social skills that they literally don't know how to act and move the dating process forward. Maybe they need at LLM (or human coach for a premium fee) to prompt them on how to chat without seeming boring/crude/creepy/narcissistic, ask someone to meet in person, and then follow up after a date. Of course some people are just shitty and beyond help, but others just need a nudge in the right direction.

Re: The dating app paradox

#377

Post by nradov »

sweetro17 wrote: post #366
hnthrowaway6543 wrote: post #336

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…

I see your point here - and I do agree, from experience, people sometimes express a desire for a bit of reality distortion in dating (we often heard that they want the experience to feel more like 'fate' or 'chance' than overly engineered). That said, I don't fully agree with the idea that there's a uniform concept of x/10 scale for daters and that they uniformly will balk at those below that uniform rating and there…

Body type is a significant factor for way more than 50%. People lie on surveys because they feel guilty for being superficial.

Re: The dating app paradox

#378

Post by intrasight »

user_7832 wrote: post #250
Terretta wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, 50/50 of a billion dollars, or having to financially engineer to operate within $1000 a day* cash flow? You're right, there's only one rational bet. * More if you set up with a bank with intraday transfers.

Not a revenue of $1000, but always being $1000 away from being in debt. ...yeah I get "what if I spent $900 on a purchase and got the money back the next day" is a valid criticism, but I mean, just above poverty. By the way the P(expected) = (1 billion * 0.5) + ((almost) zero * 0.5) = a very respectable 500 million, which even at $1000 a day would take 500,000 days or over a thousand years.

> but always being $1000 away from being in debt

As in like 70% of Americans

Re: The dating app paradox

#379

Post by generalizations »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #264
generalizations wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest part is users. I’d imagine what they’re actually buying is the marketshare of the competition. Note that ‘subpar matching to keep users on the app’ only works if you control a large majority of the market. Which is all to say, it’s not the app clone you’re selling them. It’s the users you stole and are selling back.

Subpar matching is a consequence of 80%+ being rejected by default. You either exclude them from your platform or string them along to monetize them. You're not going to find a technical solution to reduce bias in human behavior.

Anecdotally, some of those apps used to be a lot better at matching people up. It's totally possible to match way more than 20% - but why bother, if you can just string them along?

Re: The dating app paradox

#380

Post by xyzelement »

janalsncm wrote: post #77

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.

Back in my single days a woman approached me on OkCupid saying she was a matchmaker and I was a good candidate for her client. I rejected the client but consented in being in their database and once in a while they would ask if I was interested in going on a date with one of their customers (I guess this was either a service where only women paid, or I at the very least wasn't a customer they were working for but connected with me when it made sense for them.)

What I quickly realized is that it's still not a great model. The match maker promised the women at least X dates per month, and the benefit was that setting them up with me let them check off that box (I am professional, good looking, not crazy, etc.) but I ended up declining to meet these women, or after a first date. The reason is that as paying customers of the match maker, they were also a bit too far into the "oh shit it's almost too late territory" and wasn't what I was looking for.

I guess the point I am making is that the high paid matchmaker can screen-out the obvious shit for you, but the flip side is you're now "someone who needs a match maker" and that's limiting too.

Coincidentally, I met my wife pretty randomly on a swipe. Had an OK date with her, but decided she was a good woman so I called her back. After our second date I decided to give it a real go, and deleted the apps. Two kids now.

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