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>But in general, we focus on making it an experience that doesn’t discriminate and encourages people to be their best selves. Well, you failed miserably. Not j

>But in general, we focus on making it an experience that doesn’t discriminate and encourages people to be their best selves. Well, you failed miserably. Not just OkCupid but online dating in general. I think it is one of the few aspects of 21st century life where the Internet/technology made us more close minded instead of more open minded. If you are at a party and meet five different people, you will immediately notice something that you don't like about them, but you will give them the benefit of doubt and engage them in conversation for at least five minutes and allow them the chance to show you their best selves. No such thing in online dating.

meri_dian 9y ago
But that sort of behavior makes sense in those two contexts. At a typical party you have a finite number of people to interact with. So you might as well work with who's available. Online, the number of people available to us is practically infinite so we can afford to discriminate.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  This paradox/abundance of choice is artificial though. Dating apps could throw up a counter of the total number of people you will be permitted to interact with over a window of time, which creates scarcity that forces the user to increase their efforts accordingly. It’s entirely possible to encourage positive social behavior with technology.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    Would that make sense to implement from the perspective of a dating app though? Users could just move to another platform without artificial scarcity and... stay there, because there is no scarcity. I'm not sure that coercing people to settle is positive behavior, but regardless, enforcing artificial scarcity isn't a feasible strategy for a dating app.
    - snakeboy 9y ago
      Well most dating apps suffer from the problem of actual scarcity, in which they don't reach a critical mass of people to make the effort of making a profile and actively searching worthwhile. Tinder is one of the few that has gone "mainstream" and has reached that point.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Everyone settles, realistically speaking, as you’re optimizing for a local maximum when dating, not a global maximum. You’re equating more choices with better outcomes. I argue that isn’t the case. Unless we’re going to feed every data point we can into a ML black box, and out will come your arranged ideal partnership (there’s even a black mirror episode about this). Getting to know people sounds more fun, but I’m old shrug
      - meri_dian 9y ago
        What you're saying is true, I just think users would feel they're being forced to settle if their choices are limited. To be fair though, if people could be convinced to buy into the platform with its restrictions, it could make for an interesting experience. While Tinder profiles are built for speed, with only a few pictures and blurbs, profiles on your platform could have much more detailed biographies, videos, etc... It would be a more immersive experience. If done right I think your idea does have potential.
  - snakeboy 9y ago
    Tinder does this to some extent by limiting how many "right swipes" a non-paying user has every 12 hours. I don't know if that is enough of a scarcity to really change any behavior though. At the very least it discourages the strategy of blindly swiping right as fast as possible and then choosing a mate from the intersection of "those who also swiped right on you" and "people you'd ever consider dating".
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > This paradox/abundance of choice is artificial though. Dating apps could throw up a counter of the total number of people you will be permitted to interact with over a window of time, which creates scarcity that forces the user to increase their efforts accordingly. The problem is that's not what causes the problem. What happens is that different people are different levels of desirable and everyone messages the highly desirable ones first. Then those women ignore most of the flood of messages they got, even the ones from other highly desirable people, because they don't have time for so many messages. So then all the senders, dejected, realize the majority of messages won't get a response and become less selective in who they send them to. So then the second most desirable set of partners get flooded with messages and it repeats on down the line. Which creates the illusion of choice, because even if you're a "6" you'll get messages from many people, including an "8" or three, but you can't actually have them. They only messaged you because they messaged everybody. So then the 6 wastes their time responding to the 8 instead of the other 6s they actually had a chance with, who then get no responses from other 6s. If you limited the number of messages then everyone would only message the most desirable partners. So the 10s would still be flooded and not respond and the 6s would go from having too many messages from unavailable senders to having zero messages from anyone. Some sites do the "user's mailbox is full" thing to try to avoid this, but that doesn't really fix it either. It just accelerates the problem because then the most desirable partners all have full mailboxes, so the second most desirable partners get flooded with messages even sooner. What you need is some way to match people with the people they actually have a chance with (and who actually have a chance with them). But that's easier said than done.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      I think that’s the crux of the problem. In the real world, 6s do have a chance with 8s, 9s, 10s. In dating apps, because of the scattershot approach, they don’t. “At scale” is f*ucking with how humans operate, and not for the better.
      - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
        > In the real world, 6s do have a chance with 8s, 9s, 10s. In dating apps, because of the scattershot approach, they don’t. It's not that they never do, it's that they on average don't, in either case. The average person will choose an 8 over a 6, and the average 8 will have that choice. And I mean it as an overall rating including things like intelligence and wealth, not just physical appearance. It's not that a 6 can get an 8 because she's interesting, it's that being interesting makes her an 8 too. So interactions between 6s and 8s (or, especially, 3s and 8s) are much more likely to be a waste of everyone's time than interactions between 6s and 6s, but that's what dating websites cause to be common.
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  That's not true. Online is not infinite. The number of matches I had went from a dozen a week to maybe one every couple of weeks. Lowered my standards every day too. I live in Seattle though. Other cities might have more fish. :*(
pmoriarty 9y ago
I've talked to all sorts of people at parties... mostly it was small talk, or talk about something I wasn't really interested in, and very occasionally about some mutual interest. Odds are that many of these people actually shared one or more interest with me, but neither of us had any idea because we didn't know anything about each other at the parties, so never talked about it, and so never found out we might have something in common and so might be compatible. Thinking of all these wasted opportunities makes me sad. With online dating, by the time I meet with someone, we'll already know that we have a bunch of things in common, and already know what many of those things are. So there's a lot less guessing and blindly stumbling around trying to find something of interest to both to talk about. We can cut to the chase and immediately start talking about our (hopefully many) common interests.
colmvp 9y ago
Couldn’t agree more. To add to your point, I’ll say this: as a Asian guy I’ve interacted with hundreds of non-Asian female profiles and not a single one had mutual interest in me. Not one. And I don’t say this because I only date non-Asians so much as I don’t care about a persons ethnicity, a belief that isn’t shared by others online. Meanwhile in real life I’ve gotten to know and date extremely successful, smart, non-white women. Why? Because by having conversations with them in real life prior to moving onto the next stage, I likely broke down generalizations about Asian men and got to show my best self. One of my best friends who is white and extremely successful (successfully went through the top medical programs) once said to me she never dates Asian guys from online sites because she doesn’t know if they’ll speak fluent English. One of my good looking Asian male friends has made the similar observations to me. He’s only met any of his SO’s from parties and get togethers because people online treat him differently.

meri_dian 9y ago

But that sort of behavior makes sense in those two contexts. At a typical party you have a finite number of people to interact with. So you might as well work with who's available. Online, the number of people available to us is practically infinite so we can afford to discriminate.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
This paradox/abundance of choice is artificial though. Dating apps could throw up a counter of the total number of people you will be permitted to interact with over a window of time, which creates scarcity that forces the user to increase their efforts accordingly. It’s entirely possible to encourage positive social behavior with technology.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  Would that make sense to implement from the perspective of a dating app though? Users could just move to another platform without artificial scarcity and... stay there, because there is no scarcity. I'm not sure that coercing people to settle is positive behavior, but regardless, enforcing artificial scarcity isn't a feasible strategy for a dating app.
  - snakeboy 9y ago
    Well most dating apps suffer from the problem of actual scarcity, in which they don't reach a critical mass of people to make the effort of making a profile and actively searching worthwhile. Tinder is one of the few that has gone "mainstream" and has reached that point.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Everyone settles, realistically speaking, as you’re optimizing for a local maximum when dating, not a global maximum. You’re equating more choices with better outcomes. I argue that isn’t the case. Unless we’re going to feed every data point we can into a ML black box, and out will come your arranged ideal partnership (there’s even a black mirror episode about this). Getting to know people sounds more fun, but I’m old shrug
    - meri_dian 9y ago
      What you're saying is true, I just think users would feel they're being forced to settle if their choices are limited. To be fair though, if people could be convinced to buy into the platform with its restrictions, it could make for an interesting experience. While Tinder profiles are built for speed, with only a few pictures and blurbs, profiles on your platform could have much more detailed biographies, videos, etc... It would be a more immersive experience. If done right I think your idea does have potential.
- snakeboy 9y ago
  Tinder does this to some extent by limiting how many "right swipes" a non-paying user has every 12 hours. I don't know if that is enough of a scarcity to really change any behavior though. At the very least it discourages the strategy of blindly swiping right as fast as possible and then choosing a mate from the intersection of "those who also swiped right on you" and "people you'd ever consider dating".
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > This paradox/abundance of choice is artificial though. Dating apps could throw up a counter of the total number of people you will be permitted to interact with over a window of time, which creates scarcity that forces the user to increase their efforts accordingly. The problem is that's not what causes the problem. What happens is that different people are different levels of desirable and everyone messages the highly desirable ones first. Then those women ignore most of the flood of messages they got, even the ones from other highly desirable people, because they don't have time for so many messages. So then all the senders, dejected, realize the majority of messages won't get a response and become less selective in who they send them to. So then the second most desirable set of partners get flooded with messages and it repeats on down the line. Which creates the illusion of choice, because even if you're a "6" you'll get messages from many people, including an "8" or three, but you can't actually have them. They only messaged you because they messaged everybody. So then the 6 wastes their time responding to the 8 instead of the other 6s they actually had a chance with, who then get no responses from other 6s. If you limited the number of messages then everyone would only message the most desirable partners. So the 10s would still be flooded and not respond and the 6s would go from having too many messages from unavailable senders to having zero messages from anyone. Some sites do the "user's mailbox is full" thing to try to avoid this, but that doesn't really fix it either. It just accelerates the problem because then the most desirable partners all have full mailboxes, so the second most desirable partners get flooded with messages even sooner. What you need is some way to match people with the people they actually have a chance with (and who actually have a chance with them). But that's easier said than done.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    I think that’s the crux of the problem. In the real world, 6s do have a chance with 8s, 9s, 10s. In dating apps, because of the scattershot approach, they don’t. “At scale” is f*ucking with how humans operate, and not for the better.
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      > In the real world, 6s do have a chance with 8s, 9s, 10s. In dating apps, because of the scattershot approach, they don’t. It's not that they never do, it's that they on average don't, in either case. The average person will choose an 8 over a 6, and the average 8 will have that choice. And I mean it as an overall rating including things like intelligence and wealth, not just physical appearance. It's not that a 6 can get an 8 because she's interesting, it's that being interesting makes her an 8 too. So interactions between 6s and 8s (or, especially, 3s and 8s) are much more likely to be a waste of everyone's time than interactions between 6s and 6s, but that's what dating websites cause to be common.
kelukelugames 9y ago
That's not true. Online is not infinite. The number of matches I had went from a dozen a week to maybe one every couple of weeks. Lowered my standards every day too. I live in Seattle though. Other cities might have more fish. :*(

pmoriarty 9y ago

I've talked to all sorts of people at parties... mostly it was small talk, or talk about something I wasn't really interested in, and very occasionally about some mutual interest. Odds are that many of these people actually shared one or more interest with me, but neither of us had any idea because we didn't know anything about each other at the parties, so never talked about it, and so never found out we might have something in common and so might be compatible. Thinking of all these wasted opportunities makes me sad. With online dating, by the time I meet with someone, we'll already know that we have a bunch of things in common, and already know what many of those things are. So there's a lot less guessing and blindly stumbling around trying to find something of interest to both to talk about. We can cut to the chase and immediately start talking about our (hopefully many) common interests.

colmvp 9y ago

Couldn’t agree more. To add to your point, I’ll say this: as a Asian guy I’ve interacted with hundreds of non-Asian female profiles and not a single one had mutual interest in me. Not one. And I don’t say this because I only date non-Asians so much as I don’t care about a persons ethnicity, a belief that isn’t shared by others online. Meanwhile in real life I’ve gotten to know and date extremely successful, smart, non-white women. Why? Because by having conversations with them in real life prior to moving onto the next stage, I likely broke down generalizations about Asian men and got to show my best self. One of my best friends who is white and extremely successful (successfully went through the top medical programs) once said to me she never dates Asian guys from online sites because she doesn’t know if they’ll speak fluent English. One of my good looking Asian male friends has made the similar observations to me. He’s only met any of his SO’s from parties and get togethers because people online treat him differently.