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Never pay for online dating (2010)

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Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#401

Post by avgcorrection »

535188B17C93743 wrote: post #78
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'…

Seems like a waste of tax-payer money to me. Why can't people just... meet others offline like they did 10+ years ago.

Bowling alone, pfft... why can’t they bowl with somebody?

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#402

Post by VBprogrammer »

tromp wrote: post #41
VBprogrammer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is an alternative business model which would put users and the business on the same side. Could you put a lien against someone's marriage, such that in order to marry someone you meet on HappyDating.com you had to pay the outstanding debt? Anything less extreme?

A subscription that converts to free membership after n years.

Honestly, I think this is a great idea. It would probably cost next to nothing but would work well as a marketing ploy.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#403

Post by lelanthran »

Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #183
kikokikokiko wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"presenting some silly fun data analysis as "science"" Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on, but yeah, it was just a silly fun data analysis.

> Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on and yet their sample was incredibly biased despite it being large. A big set of data still churns out bad results. Most of their blog posts did not show the data, how they normalised it, percentage of each group. They just run regression on it and anything wit…

> nd yet their sample was incredibly biased despite it being large.

I gotta ask, in case what way is the sample of a few millions of people who want to date 'incredibly' biased?

Slightly biased I might buy, but how on earth can you make the leap that people looking for dates via a matchmaking site is not at least slightly representable of people looking for dates?

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#404

Post by codeduck »

tzs wrote: post #339
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'…

> 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? California kind of accidentally did so a few years. They thought they were simply running a public sex offender registry, but it occurred to some sex offenders it was also a state run directory of people that would be less likely to be put off by their own…

this is both awful and hilarious

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#405

Post by labster »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #371
derefr wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it was a one-time game, sure. If your game relies on future business, word-of-mouth advertising, and not being arrested for fraud, it’s a bad choice.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#406

Post by robcohen »

codethief wrote: post #188
robcohen wrote: post #40

If you take the view that users should be paid for viewing ads via microtransactions (like through a browser like Brave), then isn't it reasonable to expect the same rewards for users using dating apps? Wouldn't it make sense to pay the user instead of the service for their time and attention? It seems to me that microtransactions and dating apps are a perfect match, and I wonder why no one has done this yet? Is it b…

Interesting idea but already now people swipe purely out of boredom or, even worse, get addicted to swiping – what would that look like if they also got paid for swiping?

Yes, this is an issue that needs to be addressed. On some level, people do get paid for seeing ads in the sense that the real content they want is being subsidized, so on some level, even if someone is "bullshit" swiping, they are still giving their time and attention so there is some benefit for the person be swiped in the aggregate.

That said, I imagine the actual thing that would need to be paid for is someone's time, so posting a kind of smart contract crypto bond that someone gets for showing up in person to a coffee date or something like that. Yes it would still be abused, but there would be a equalibrium reached between price and time sacrificed. Maybe you make it so that you can only go on a certain number of coffee dates per week or something like that.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#407

Post by Volundr »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #371
derefr wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eh maybe from an efficiency perspective on profit vs labor, of I can get one person to pay me $100 to matchmake for them, then do nothing, I've got an infinite return on my effort, but if I want to make a living doing this I need to have some success stories to keep the $100s coming, so some effort is needed.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#408

Post by jnwatson »

bartimus wrote: post #293
jefftk wrote: 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…

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

Indeed. I met my girlfriend on a relatively novel dating site called The League.

It was recently purchased by Match.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#409

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

lelanthran wrote: post #403
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on and yet their sample was incredibly biased despite it being large. A big set of data still churns out bad results. Most of their blog posts did not show the data, how they normalised it, percentage of each group. They just run regression on it and anything wit…

> nd yet their sample was incredibly biased despite it being large. I gotta ask, in case what way is the sample of a few millions of people who want to date 'incredibly' biased? Slightly biased I might buy, but how on earth can you make the leap that people looking for dates via a matchmaking site is not at least slightly representable of people looking for dates?

Online dating already mostly skews towards collage age. Secondly apps like OkCupid with long forms will self select the users who are not willing to disclose that information, don't wanna spend the time, or won't engage seriously with the form.

So you will have mostly a group of 20 year olds, who are willing to answer a lot of questions. It doesn't matter how big the pot is, thats not a random sample of society.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#410

Post by Firmwarrior »

notch656a wrote: post #247
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you've hit the genetic jackpot.

I've always wondered if online dating selects HARD (relatively to in-person invites) for looks. I don't look very pretty but when I was on the (IRL) dating scene I could get probably half the women I talked to out on a date if I really tried. Being fairly ugly I tried tender and OkCupid for a year or two and was lucky to have someone accept once every few months and I had a 100% no-show rate where the counterparty ba…

I'm not the prettiest dude in the world, but I'm not really particularly ugly.. I look like a brown Matt Damon IRL.

I had absolutely zero luck with online dating back when I tried it around 2008. I think I just got downranked into oblivion by not gaming the system, since those dating sites use a ranking algorithm internally to gauge how attractive you are. If you click the "like" button on any woman you'd be willing to go on a coffee date with, it assumes you're a loser and hides you away.

Fortunately, you can network your way into a relationship the same way you can get a job.. just put out the word among friends, family, family friends, etc that you're looking for a girlfriend. Chances are you're within a couple of hops of hundreds or thousands of people. This isn't good for finding hookups or for incel jerks, but if you're ready to settle down it's the best method IMO.

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