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.
I contemplated whether to try to build a dating site a few times while I was single, and every time what stopped me was the perverse incentives. Making a financially viable dating service without actively making things worse on purpose is really hard.
E.g. at one point I spoke to a woman who told me she'd out of curiosity paid for a month of Tinder's premium sub to see how many had swiped right on her, and her queue was over 3000. She wasn't swiping much. The queue was basically perpetually growing, and the odds for any of the men swiping was accordingly low and dropping. Which was good for Tinder of course - a larger pool of people for men to swipe and get frustrated over lack of responses from, until some proportion pay.
If you're not dependent on frustrating your users into wanting to pay for priority, or getting people off the service because they've found someone is in fact your goal, it's trivial to fix this issue (and many others): Stop showing a profile when the queue gets too deep.
Same thing with not showing inactive profiles. Or actually trying to match profiles of people who are likely to match up (again there's a perverse incentive: you want to match up profiles that one side will like, but not match up profiles where both sides are interested too often; rack up the swipes but not the connections...)
That's the long way of saying I agree, and to get out some of the frustration from past years of using them (hopefully never again...). There are truly few types of services where the interests of users and commercial operators are so totally misaligned.
Stats consistently show that women only select about 5% of options displayed from online dating apps. Men select about 50%. And women disproportionately give their attention to the most conventionally attractive men. (To say: That 5% is not evenly distributed amoung men.) The bottom half of men (from attractiveness ratings) basically get zero matches... ever. Online dating is brutal.
No, all women get some attention using online dating apps. A bunch of YouTubers have created fake online dating profiles with incredibly ugly women (bad face or bad body), and they still get matches. This guy on X has run lots of these tests with hilarious results: <a href="https://x.com/MurrayHillGuy1" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/MurrayHillGuy1
> Dating is brutal.
I can confidently say that dating was not brutal before the apps. (I am pretty old.) Before the apps, couples were mostly looks-matched: the ugos dated each other, the mids dated each other, and the best dated each other. Unless the guy was very personable/funny/rich, most people were looks-matched. Online dating has reduced everyone to a few photographs.
Women demonstrate incredibly different behaviour when "selecting mates" when comparing (1) familiar settings, like work, school, church/temple, friend/activity/hobby groups vs (2) unfamiliar settings, like bars, clubs, public places, and online dating. For (1), they find many more men attractive because they can evaluate them on more than looks. For (2), they can only evaluate on looks. If you ask women to rate strangers based only upon looks, they will rank only 20% as attractive. That is what makes online dating so awful for average men.
When young (average looking) guys tell me about their awful/non-existent dating lives at the office, I always recommend that they try approaching women in public more often. Ignore the shit you see on social media where the fake #MeToo women come on to put guys on full blast for approaching. Don't worry about them. They are awful people, and you don't want them. Yes, you will get rejected a lot (maybe 5-10% hit rate), but it is way better than online dating apps. You can approach in supermarkets, stores, cafes, festivals/concerts, gym, parks, etc. That way, plenty of other people are around, and she won't feel unsafe. And start by approaching ugos/low-mids. You only need to get their socials or chat app. Even if you have no serious interest in that woman, you can practice chatting with her. Once you build some confidence, approach average looking women. Eventually, you will find success. As long as you dress average/OK, groom (comb/style hair, etc.) and don't smell bad, they won't put you on full blast if she is not interested. She will politely decline, or give socials, but never reply to chats.
Please don't read this post as an attack on women. It is an attack on our current ecosystem of online dating apps.
> I can confidently say that dating was not brutal before the apps. (I am pretty old.)
What? Dating been brutal and unforgiving for as long as I've been alive, but I wouldn't say I'm old (between 30 - 40). it was definitely harsh before the apps and had the exact same "everyone wants to date beautiful people, no one wants to date ugly people" "problem" that exists today, not sure what makes you say it's any different than today.
> Please don't read this post as an attack on women
I don't read your comment as an "attack" on anything, women or dating apps. But things like "women can only evaluate based on looks in bars, clubs, public spaces, etc" is wildly out of touch with reality, and makes your comment rightly seem out of touch rather than an attack on anything at all.
Encounter someone interesting? Chat more. Someone boring and not interesting? Don't chat so much. Speak to a whole bunch of people, a little bit, stay with less to speak more, like how its always worked.
water-data-dude · · focus · HN ↗
vidarh · · focus · HN ↗
E.g. at one point I spoke to a woman who told me she'd out of curiosity paid for a month of Tinder's premium sub to see how many had swiped right on her, and her queue was over 3000. She wasn't swiping much. The queue was basically perpetually growing, and the odds for any of the men swiping was accordingly low and dropping. Which was good for Tinder of course - a larger pool of people for men to swipe and get frustrated over lack of responses from, until some proportion pay.
If you're not dependent on frustrating your users into wanting to pay for priority, or getting people off the service because they've found someone is in fact your goal, it's trivial to fix this issue (and many others): Stop showing a profile when the queue gets too deep.
Same thing with not showing inactive profiles. Or actually trying to match profiles of people who are likely to match up (again there's a perverse incentive: you want to match up profiles that one side will like, but not match up profiles where both sides are interested too often; rack up the swipes but not the connections...)
That's the long way of saying I agree, and to get out some of the frustration from past years of using them (hopefully never again...). There are truly few types of services where the interests of users and commercial operators are so totally misaligned.
throwaway2037 · · focus · HN ↗
sokoloff · · focus · HN ↗
Dating is brutal.
Online dating seems like it perhaps speed-runs that a bit, but I don’t think it dramatically changes the essence.
throwaway2037 · · focus · HN ↗
Women demonstrate incredibly different behaviour when "selecting mates" when comparing (1) familiar settings, like work, school, church/temple, friend/activity/hobby groups vs (2) unfamiliar settings, like bars, clubs, public places, and online dating. For (1), they find many more men attractive because they can evaluate them on more than looks. For (2), they can only evaluate on looks. If you ask women to rate strangers based only upon looks, they will rank only 20% as attractive. That is what makes online dating so awful for average men.
When young (average looking) guys tell me about their awful/non-existent dating lives at the office, I always recommend that they try approaching women in public more often. Ignore the shit you see on social media where the fake #MeToo women come on to put guys on full blast for approaching. Don't worry about them. They are awful people, and you don't want them. Yes, you will get rejected a lot (maybe 5-10% hit rate), but it is way better than online dating apps. You can approach in supermarkets, stores, cafes, festivals/concerts, gym, parks, etc. That way, plenty of other people are around, and she won't feel unsafe. And start by approaching ugos/low-mids. You only need to get their socials or chat app. Even if you have no serious interest in that woman, you can practice chatting with her. Once you build some confidence, approach average looking women. Eventually, you will find success. As long as you dress average/OK, groom (comb/style hair, etc.) and don't smell bad, they won't put you on full blast if she is not interested. She will politely decline, or give socials, but never reply to chats.
Please don't read this post as an attack on women. It is an attack on our current ecosystem of online dating apps.
embedding-shape · · focus · HN ↗
What? Dating been brutal and unforgiving for as long as I've been alive, but I wouldn't say I'm old (between 30 - 40). it was definitely harsh before the apps and had the exact same "everyone wants to date beautiful people, no one wants to date ugly people" "problem" that exists today, not sure what makes you say it's any different than today.
> Please don't read this post as an attack on women
I don't read your comment as an "attack" on anything, women or dating apps. But things like "women can only evaluate based on looks in bars, clubs, public spaces, etc" is wildly out of touch with reality, and makes your comment rightly seem out of touch rather than an attack on anything at all.
KellyCriterion · · focus · HN ↗
then, you are entering a place with loud music - how else apart from looks are you judging to speak some words to?
embedding-shape · · focus · HN ↗