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The dating app paradox

npr.org

411–420 of 570 posts

Re: The dating app paradox

#411

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…

> 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…

Average American is not ugly and I mean it 100% seriously. Moreover, average American is as ugly offline as online.

Re: The dating app paradox

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

The idea that real world couples necessary match attractiveness is kind of incels invention. And then they get angry whenever they see a couple with one person super attractive and other .. normal.

Re: The dating app paradox

#413

The article doesn't mention this at all but there seems to be an abundance of "content creators" on dating sites targeting men. They will chat with you for a day or so and then try to sell you their "product." It's anecdotal but this happened to me several times. You also hit a bunch of profiles that are clearly promoting similar services. I'm sure it's not great for women either, but dating apps in modern times are…

I never understood sites like onlyfans... i mean, I understand the sites and creators, but I don't understand men who pay for that. On one hand, you have normal porn... with some google-fu (well... bing-fu) and disregard for copyrights, you can find anything you want for free, but you have to jerk off by yourself. On the other side, you have prostitution, where you pay, and you get actual sex (bj, hj, pegging, whatev…

Yeah, it's a mystery. You don't even have to disregard copyrights if you don't want to: pornhub.com and others are all free, though you have to pay for access to certain videos. But there's so much stuff on there for free, so why bother?

Re: The dating app paradox

#415
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to for-profit, ad-driven, surveillance capitalism companies with a demonstrated interest in short term profits and hoovering all the data they can? Yeah. I'd be willing to take that risk. Don't get me wrong. I don't think the government is a good group to do this. I just think they're a less-bad group than the usual parties.

This might be heresy to say around these parts but arranged marriages in Asian countries are typically successful and happy. Note there is a world of difference between arranged and "forced" marriages. Yes, there are downsides to what is seen in the "secular west" as an illiberal over-involvement of families. 'Honour killings' and other regressive horrors can occur. But they're not the norm. Plus side is that healthy…

> This might be heresy to say around these parts but arranged marriages in Asian countries are typically successful and happy.

Estimated rates of domestic violence are pretty high in those countries. That is the thing, if you make divorce socially costly, people will stay together whether happy or not.

Re: The dating app paradox

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hasn't been my experience at all, and I definitely don't think I'm a 10/10. I've had absolutely no trouble getting dates. (This does not mean that all the dates were great, or led anywhere BTW; the vast majority were nice enough people but there was no interest on one side or the other.) When I see posts like this, I really wonder if men like you just don't know how to write a decent profile intro/bio and post s…

> hen I see posts like this, I really wonder if men like you just don't know how to write a decent profile intro/bio and post some good photos. I think there are definitely certain things that make a dating profile more attractive, and many people aren't good at it. But that itself is a filter, no? Not everyone have interesting lives to fill a good bio nor attractive enough to have some attractive photos.

No, I disagree. Just ask anyone in advertising: how you present something makes a huge difference in perception.

Sure, not everyone can look like Brad Pitt in his prime, but your profile will look radically different with different photos. Having photos shot by a talented photographer, for instance, will get you better results than a couple of bathroom selfies. The same person can look much more attractive at certain camera angles, or with certain lighting. The composition of those photos will lead to very different results: what is in the photos? Are they shirtless selfies, are they showing you at the golf course, are they with your family (or ex), are they showing you on a hike, etc. Depending on what kind of person you want to attract, the photos you want to show will be very different. If you want an outdoorsy woman, don't post a bunch of photos of yourself in a bar, for instance.

Same goes for the bio. You don't have to have an extremely interesting life, but you can write something that's somewhat interesting to read, and shows that you're not lazy. A bio with nothing at all, or worse "just ask!", screams that you're lazy and aren't willing to put any effort into your profile or your search for a match. A thoughtful bio just telling about things you like and what kind of person you're looking for, even if bland, is far better unless you're looking for a very shallow or stupid person (the kind who thinks "just ask" is a good bio).

My advice for photos: get some good photos of yourself doing stuff you like to do, which you would like to find a companion for. If you want someone who goes out drinking with you a lot, then post photos of yourself at bars that you like. If you like to hang out at the gym all the time, post photos of yourself there. If you like fishing, post pictures of yourself on a boat with a dead fish. If you like hiking, post pictures of yourself doing that. The woman will subconsciously think about if she can see herself in that photo with you. If your photos don't show yourself doing anything, it'll look like you have no interests at all.

Re: The dating app paradox

#417
post #376

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…

LLMs won't help them any more than "normal" dating/socializing advice did and does - which is not much. In the end, you just gotta socialize, and practise that. Advice is just merely a small nudge, has to be very personalized, and is full of the tiniest subtleties depending on the situation. LLMs would just repeat the generic advice out there which is 95% total crap.

Re: The dating app paradox

#418

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…

> 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…

> There's a bit of kayfabe going on; users want to think the other users of online dating are 8+/10, sexy, flirty, fun, and desirable singles.

I'd go a bit further than that, people are explicitly looking for that different reality when opening the app.

That's one of the reasons of getting the app to them, getting better matches than in the reality.

I don't think it's a solvable problem, online dating is just full of paradox, the paradox highlighted in the article is real but this is another one on top of that.

Re: The dating app paradox

#419
post #103

The fact that one company repeatedly bought out its competition and now owns, according the the article, 45 dating apps probably has a lot to do with why they suck. Instead of competing by trying to be better, just buy out the rivals, gut them, and make everything worse. As long as the dominant player has lots of capital to buy any upstarts and the regulatory environment lets them do it, it can be an easier way to ma…

By standard Economic theory, that is not a stable strategy, since it incentivises starting new dating apps. It only has to be moderately successful to ensure a profitable exit. Over time, Match would run out of money. Given that Economists overwhelmingly get these things right more than our intuitions, I'm really curious what explanations they have.

> Given that Economists overwhelmingly get these things right more than our intuitions, I'm really curious what explanations they have.

Not an economist but starting a new dating app is very hard because those suffer network effects. It's not like most apps which can work on their own.

That's why there's no stress going on at Match group to keep the monopoly running, those new apps don't come up often and cannot come up often due to the nature of the business.

That's also why most of them suck so much even before being bought by the monopoly. To overcome this strong network effect stacked against them, they have to push a lot of marketing levers, some of them unethical and others are very costly.

Re: The dating app paradox

#420
post #98

Committed relationships found by judging other people's personality and looks are completely unnatural for human beings, and a result of conditioning by society. The natural state is living immersed in a place where other beings are and spontaneously interacting with them without a developed ego/personality filtering the interaction, as the closest relatives to human (chimpanzees and bonobos) do. This makes the socia…

You communicating this message by inputting a string of individual characters on an electronic device completely unnatural. So what?
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