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If you think this is big, by the way, make sure you take a look at their post from December 11th: https://theblog.okcupid.com/why-okcupid-is-changing-how-you-m

If you think this is big, by the way, make sure you take a look at their post from December 11th: https://theblog.okcupid.com/why-okcupid-is-changing-how-you-message-f14d492e7853 https://theblog.okcupid.com/why-okcupid-is-changing-how-you-... They've completely obliterated the way messaging works. You will never see a message from someone unless you're either looking at their profile or you've "liked" them. It's an interesting model. But it's also essentially driving interaction through the matching bottleneck, which is at odds with the substance-over-selfie slogan, since it turns incentives towards profile enhancement rather than investment in messaging. And it's also the kind of change you can't just blog-post explain away and expect to keep your existing users, just like the name change. It would be better suited for a new product than an existing one. Then again, maybe dating sites work best with massive turnover in userbase anyway. And even if not, that doesn't mean this isn't some of the sharpest possible product management out there. At least in the sense of responding to the incentives for people who want to develop their product careers, not necessarily in terms of actually improving the product.

colmvp 9y ago
> They've completely obliterated the way messaging works. You will never see a message from someone unless you're either looking at their profile or you've "liked" them. I've read people on /r/okcupid say it's a bad thing, but quite honestly I consider that a good thing. There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and basically get very few if any replies. One of my best friends is like myself, a person of colour, and his response rates are putrid despite putting good efforts in writing interesting opening messages that relate to the persons profile. He and I probably interacted with as many profiles in a two year period, except he had to put way more effort into his endeavors just to get marginal gains in the number of actual women he got minimum first dates from. When I use apps that have a model where you can't unlock messaging unless you have mutual interest, it still results in low response rates but the amount of investment is far, far lower than when I used the traditional model of having to initiate with messages and hope to God that they're okay with dating an Asian dude. The newer model actually encouraged me to use the app because I only had to spend a minute or two a day just to navigate through a select number of profiles. Going into online dating, I used to believe in the whole substance over selfie idea, that putting your best foot forward and having a good personality could make up for some differences, but after analyzing my stats of online dating over the last two years and seeing the disparity in terms of reply rates by ethnicity(https://i.imgur.com/UTfGthn.png https://i.imgur.com/UTfGthn.png), I'm particularly skeptical of the idea that putting efforts in messaging and profile writeups really make that much of a difference.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  > There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and basically get very few if any replies. As a really quick point, dating sites are quite explicitly not built for men. They acquire men at a far higher rate than women, and men ~tend~ to be the ones approaching women, and so pretty much every feature should (from an objective point of view) be designed to filter out men that women aren't interested in, so women receive fewer attempts at interaction from them. The bias against PoC on dating sites is a serious problem, though. And tbh, the whole mess that is the online dating experience in general is a cultural one that dating sites aren't going to solve - it's a system which allows people to much more closely follow their biases, with essentially no risk of anything bad happening. To be honest, as a woman, I don't know anyone of any gender who's had a good experience with dating sites (aside from using Tinder to find sex partners). My experience has been that I find most of my partners almost by accident through hobby/social meetups, or in the IRC social channels where I spend a lot of my time.
  - caseymarquis 9y ago
    I and another couple I know of are married/engaged 5 years after meeting on OKC. Maybe it's more effective in rural environments? Social meetups don't really exist outside of major cities, and finding compatible partners is difficult in lower population areas.
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      Perhaps! I can't stand rural areas for that reason, tbh, I need things to do and be part of.
      - nugi 9y ago
        Oddly, I find much more community engagement in rural areas. While cities often feel more isolating,even with more people. In a city, people are always there, a nusiance or a boon. But in rural areas, human contact has a higher value, and is often treated as such. Just my observations from living all over the US.
deleted 9y ago
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midnitewarrior 9y ago
My wife and I met on OKCupid as 98% matches. I'm not sure my life would be what it is if those rules had been in place. Also, OKCupid before the Match.com takeover was amazing. I hate to see what a paid dating company has done to ruin it.

colmvp 9y ago

> They've completely obliterated the way messaging works. You will never see a message from someone unless you're either looking at their profile or you've "liked" them. I've read people on /r/okcupid say it's a bad thing, but quite honestly I consider that a good thing. There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and basically get very few if any replies. One of my best friends is like myself, a person of colour, and his response rates are putrid despite putting good efforts in writing interesting opening messages that relate to the persons profile. He and I probably interacted with as many profiles in a two year period, except he had to put way more effort into his endeavors just to get marginal gains in the number of actual women he got minimum first dates from. When I use apps that have a model where you can't unlock messaging unless you have mutual interest, it still results in low response rates but the amount of investment is far, far lower than when I used the traditional model of having to initiate with messages and hope to God that they're okay with dating an Asian dude. The newer model actually encouraged me to use the app because I only had to spend a minute or two a day just to navigate through a select number of profiles. Going into online dating, I used to believe in the whole substance over selfie idea, that putting your best foot forward and having a good personality could make up for some differences, but after analyzing my stats of online dating over the last two years and seeing the disparity in terms of reply rates by ethnicity(https://i.imgur.com/UTfGthn.png https://i.imgur.com/UTfGthn.png), I'm particularly skeptical of the idea that putting efforts in messaging and profile writeups really make that much of a difference.

vertex-four 9y ago
> There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and basically get very few if any replies. As a really quick point, dating sites are quite explicitly not built for men. They acquire men at a far higher rate than women, and men ~tend~ to be the ones approaching women, and so pretty much every feature should (from an objective point of view) be designed to filter out men that women aren't interested in, so women receive fewer attempts at interaction from them. The bias against PoC on dating sites is a serious problem, though. And tbh, the whole mess that is the online dating experience in general is a cultural one that dating sites aren't going to solve - it's a system which allows people to much more closely follow their biases, with essentially no risk of anything bad happening. To be honest, as a woman, I don't know anyone of any gender who's had a good experience with dating sites (aside from using Tinder to find sex partners). My experience has been that I find most of my partners almost by accident through hobby/social meetups, or in the IRC social channels where I spend a lot of my time.
- caseymarquis 9y ago
  I and another couple I know of are married/engaged 5 years after meeting on OKC. Maybe it's more effective in rural environments? Social meetups don't really exist outside of major cities, and finding compatible partners is difficult in lower population areas.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    Perhaps! I can't stand rural areas for that reason, tbh, I need things to do and be part of.
    - nugi 9y ago
      Oddly, I find much more community engagement in rural areas. While cities often feel more isolating,even with more people. In a city, people are always there, a nusiance or a boon. But in rural areas, human contact has a higher value, and is often treated as such. Just my observations from living all over the US.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

midnitewarrior 9y ago

My wife and I met on OKCupid as 98% matches. I'm not sure my life would be what it is if those rules had been in place. Also, OKCupid before the Match.com takeover was amazing. I hate to see what a paid dating company has done to ruin it.