“Societal values always lose out,” says Noel Biderman, the founder of Ashley Madison, which calls itself
“the world’s leading married dating service for discreet encounters”—that is, cheating. “Premarital sex
used to be taboo,” explains Biderman. “So women would become miserable in marriages, because they
wouldn’t know any better. But today, more people have had failed relationships, recovered, moved on, and
found happiness. They realize that that happiness, in many ways, depends on having had the failures. As
we become more secure and confident in our ability to find someone else, usually someone better, monogamy
and the old thinking about commitment will be challenged very harshly.”
Oh man. Societal values will always lose out? Women (just women, mind you! Not men, or women and men?) were miserable in marriages because premarital sex was taboo? The lack of premarital sex directly leads to unhappy marriages? Some of these quotes border on the ridiculous. Personally, I'm glad the societal value of "Murder is wrong" hasn't lost out to these dating websites. I'm going to pile on real quick and also point out that commitment is hard. It's a disturbing trend that people can now just not deal with commitment (an important societal need, not just in relationships but in business as well) since sites like these offer them an easy way out.I'm far from the evangelical Christian right, but there is no denying family values play a part in a functional society. Stable homes and good role models are invaluable to children growing up. Good marriages can demonstrate valuable social skills, such as compromise, respect and as corny as it sounds, love. Such things should never "lose out".
Let's not forget that, as the article mentions, most of these people's goal is to generate repeat users, not create healthy relationships. I'm not denying that online dating can be a great tool, but let's take some of these opinions with a grain of salt.