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Never pay for online dating (2010)

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Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to see how this is different than the real world of strangers. If you go out anywhere you are around people. Some you find attractive some that may find you attractive. Yet, you probably never even speak to each other so visibility isn't really the problem. The fact it’s a dating app, just means you have some expectations. You expect you may get a date. But you may not. You expect those other people are re…

The difference is precisely what you mentioned, people there expect to have dates and find a partner. There could be other people trying to get something else (heck there are even scammers) but it's not your expectation to start a convo expecting to get somewhere, it's the goal of the app. This doesn't happen in real life, in fact, if you try the same approach, you'll be seen as creepy depending on the context. Datin…

I guess dating for me always just was an activity without expectation. Or perhaps better said, without surprise. Meaning anything could happen. I might have fallen in love with someone on the night we met, the universe seemed aligned, we already got in some small talk face to face, maybe even got physical then - only to find out the next day they gave me the phone number for Pizza Hut and I’d never see or hear from them again. I couldn’t even Google them or DM them, it didn’t exist. Everyone was a ghost by default.

The apps to me seem exactly like what you all are saying. If I were young I'd probably turn to the same tactics I employed before the apps; meeting people in the real world. Probably easier said than done, but that's always been true.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to see how this is different than the real world of strangers. If you go out anywhere you are around people. Some you find attractive some that may find you attractive. Yet, you probably never even speak to each other so visibility isn't really the problem. The fact it’s a dating app, just means you have some expectations. You expect you may get a date. But you may not. You expect those other people are re…

Volume and effort. Likes and such are distracting as they are attract the wrong people (attention seekers) or give off the wrong impression (false flags). The former is very prominent against men, the latter is very prominent against women. Volume exasperates both this problem and the problem of choice. There are so many choices for so little effort, people are drowning in it and not investing enough to feel attached…

I believe this is correct. The vast majority of my modern "swipe era" dating experiences fall into either 1) Woman makes up excuse to bail within ~2 hours of planned date 2) Woman ghosts/un-matches just as conversation begins to gain momentum 3) Woman tells me she is "overwhelmed" by the attention she's getting from the app and is going to delete it, leaving behind her cell number. The effort/attention ratio for women on dating apps is literally unnatural. This ratio is tempered in the real world because it takes circumstance and balls to approach a woman.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to see how this is different than the real world of strangers. If you go out anywhere you are around people. Some you find attractive some that may find you attractive. Yet, you probably never even speak to each other so visibility isn't really the problem. The fact it’s a dating app, just means you have some expectations. You expect you may get a date. But you may not. You expect those other people are re…

Volume and effort. Likes and such are distracting as they are attract the wrong people (attention seekers) or give off the wrong impression (false flags). The former is very prominent against men, the latter is very prominent against women. Volume exasperates both this problem and the problem of choice. There are so many choices for so little effort, people are drowning in it and not investing enough to feel attached…

exacerbates

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far from your Burger King straw men, there's even a very famous study, out of the UK if I'm not mistaken, that confirmed the thesis of black women being the least attractive group across the whole spectrum of major ethnic groups. I mean, there must be one group, out of all, that would score lower than the others ain't there? Reality doesn't have to be politically correct at the end of the day.

Strangely, There doesn't have to be just one with a lower score than the others. One of the weirdest things about being human is that our preferences are neither rational nor consistent. The classic example in behavioural economics is with ice-cream flavors. If I prefer chocolate to strawberry and strawberry to vanilla, it doesn't follow that I prefer chocolate to vanilla. The preferences aren't transitive, and there…

Thats a very interesting point that I've never considered. Where can I read more about that? Is there a study you can link me to?

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#435

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…

Sounds a lot like a casino. The house always wins, at the expense of their customers.

Maybe it’s worse than a casino - relatively few people walk into a casino expecting to win life changing money and never come back.

Many people use dating apps expecting to find a lifelong partner and never come back.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#436
Personal anecdote:

Bought a Bumble Premium with a one time payment of ~120 EUR. In three months got only one match which led to a date. But what a date! We are in love now and I am quitting all dating apps I have used before.

My match was ONLY possible due to a Premium subscription. These 120 EUR were the best spent money of my live.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#438
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.

Christian Rudder, the author of this article and many other great posts on the OKCupid blog, wrote a book with a lot of the same insights repackaged.

https://www.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Christian-Rudder-audiobook/...

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#439
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…

What I used to love about OkCupid was how it would nudge you into writing a profile to tell who you are and what you care about. My profile had grown and it was a nice little place to present myself to the world and to talk to various women sometimes not even for dating but for the sake of an interesting conversation. Compare that with Tinder that won't even let you write more than small quantity of letters, come this is just text! There used to be an interesting thing where you would see who visited your profile and vice versa. Sadly the OkCupid website has been crippled into being unusable and the app is just a worse tinder now. Profiles are short, and mostly uninteresting.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

I know your idea is very theoretical but what happens when I exhaust the deposit? Do I stay around and earn money or do you kick me out?
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