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Never pay for online dating (2010)

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Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#451

Post by lmm »

flutas wrote: post #60
bragh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have memory-holed some very inconvenient blog posts, such as this https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/okcupid-inbox-attractive/ (probably exists somewhere on archive.org)

> (probably exists somewhere on archive.org) Yep! https://web.archive.org/web/20091121080804/http://blog.okcup... God I love archive.org

I loved them when I trusted them to keep backups of things that were taken down like this, but the fact that they quickly removed KiwiFarms from their archive has dented my confidence a lot.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#452

Post by lmm »

mikepurvis wrote: post #213
Cloudef wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dating apps do not work because you are not actually present. You have the attention of hundreds of people at the same time, so unless you decide to meet up right away, the other party immediately loses interest. Most of the people are just looking for sex or something less serious, and the apps heavily paywall males. They are cancer. Meeting through friends is probably the safest, as that at least gives you some saf…

> Most of the people are just looking for sex or something less serious... Not in my limited experience browsing the 30-40 range in my area. There are a handful of profiles where it's clearly an ENM couple looking for playmates, but almost all the rest have the exhausted-sounding language of "serious only please", "no hookups/nsa", "please don't be a weirdo/cheater", "please have your shit together", etc. > ... and t…

> almost all the rest have the exhausted-sounding language of "serious only please", "no hookups/nsa"

Which is notoriously one of the strongest indicators of a woman who's looking for hookups/nsa.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#454

Post by novok »

sneak wrote: post #427
skyyler wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I didn't realize how good I have it. Discussions about dating sites have always been confusing to me. It's simple, you make a profile, talk to people, people talk to you... Why is that so hard?

Most (75%+) men on most dating sites only complete the first two items on your “simple” list.

Lol that is brutal.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#456

Post by quickthrower2 »

xtracto wrote: post #304
bartimus wrote: post #293

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.

Cheapskate users will keep dating (or even just looking) even after finding a good match.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#457

Post by Nextgrid »

didactylost wrote: post #110
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'…

At some level, a dating network needs to make recommendations. In Plato's Republic , he proposed his vision for a utopian city-state. Essentially, citizens would be ranked into castes: bronze/iron for laborers and artisans, silver for soldiers, gold for leaders. When people came of age in this utopia, they would be paired off through what they would be told is a random lottery. In reality, however, the city's leaders…

If you leave it up to private companies, you'd still get an eugenics program, one that selects for creating the perfect little consumer.

In a future where dating apps (and technology in general) becomes the only way to meet potential mates, only those who successfully "engage" with the apps/tech in a way that the company approves of will be allowed to reproduce.

Those that either refuse to engage on principles, or don't "engage" with it the "right" way (let's say by not falling for dark patterns, etc) and end up banned are effectively prevented from reproducing.

Both options can end up dystopian, but I'll take a government-run scheme any day. Not only are governments at least theoretically accountable to their citizens, but they are also as slow as molasses and terrible at tech, so they'd fare much worse at eugenics than a private company.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#458

Post by Nextgrid »

coupdejarnac wrote: post #359
btbuildem wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think onboarding users is the biggest problems. How does one approach that?

If I could have come up with a cheap solution, I would have done it already. It would probably be worth it to pay Kim Kardashian her $250k featured post fee to get a bunch of women to join. Something along those lines.

I'd be worried that the change in people's attention spans means that a OKC clone (which as I understand relied on lots of personality questions) wouldn't work today as most people just wouldn't actually complete it. A promotional post by an "influencer" would probably make those people self-select too.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#459

Post by compiler-guy »

Brusco_RF wrote: post #434
compiler-guy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11483173/ is one such study.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/preferences/#Tra has an overview, note especially the paragraph about pair-wise comparisons.

Re: Never pay for online dating (2010)

#460

Post by coupdejarnac »

Nextgrid wrote: post #458
coupdejarnac wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could have come up with a cheap solution, I would have done it already. It would probably be worth it to pay Kim Kardashian her $250k featured post fee to get a bunch of women to join. Something along those lines.

I'd be worried that the change in people's attention spans means that a OKC clone (which as I understand relied on lots of personality questions) wouldn't work today as most people just wouldn't actually complete it. A promotional post by an "influencer" would probably make those people self-select too.

I think there is a lot of fatigue from the type of low effort, low value interactions that Tinder et al facilitate. I have no marketing data available, but I would guess there is demand for an app that at least makes an effort to create higher value connections.

The social media influencer idea solves the problem of onboarding a lot of people fast, particularly women. I disagree that the audience self selects to have low attention span- I doubt that matters if there is sufficient demand for a non-Tinder dating app experience.

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