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How Singapore's government-run dating service works

255 points · 369 comments · danielfoster

  1. water-data-dude · · focus · HN ↗
    You know, there's probably fewer perverse incentives with a government run dating service. Obviously I can imagine ways it could suck, but when I compare them to how commercial dating services are run it's hard to see how they could do a _worse_ job.
    1. pcthrowaway · · focus · HN ↗
      If people are oriented towards traditional relationships, then pairing people up younger probably leads to higher overall fertility rate in the population, so I could see governments with existentially declining fertility rates (read: almost all of them) taking an interest in actually providing a successful service here (unlike the commercial dating apps).

      Of course, a lack of a match is not the only thing that prevents people from having kids, but I'm curious what the impact of an optimal matching service would be on fertility rates.

      edit: I think governments might do well to provide funding for dating apps (whether privately or publicly owned) based on how many matches from the app actually lead to children. Completely flip the classical incentives on their head. Should be easy enough to ask if newborns were a product of a participating app as part of the birth certification process.

      1. expedition32 · · focus · HN ↗
        What is a traditional relationship? Fathers selling their daughter off?
        1. Retric · · focus · HN ↗
          People having “large” numbers of children.

          The modern trend of most families with 0-2 kids isn’t sustainable. We don’t need to go back to 5+ being the norm but a self stable society needs to be able to offset non parents thus requiring 3+ children families to be quite common.

          1. autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
            Maybe we can also go back to the "traditional relationship" where a single person's income can pay for a house, a car, and support 7+ people.
            1. watwut · · focus · HN ↗
              Was there a time when an average single person could do that and support did not meant "they live in abject poverty"?
              1. graemep · · focus · HN ↗
                Lots of people did it in the 1970s. Maybe not one income, but one fill time income and one part time income.
                1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

                  [deleted]

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