4 ms·

I am waiting to use a FB dating feature. Even if it is bad, other options are substantially worse. First, the main website that took into account preferences

by stared 7y ago

I am waiting to use a FB dating feature. Even if it is bad, other options are substantially worse. First, the main website that took into account preferences (OKCupid) is almost gone, Tinderified. And Tinder itself does not look at preferences at all. If you are a type of person who dates people randomly met on a bus stop or in a bar, it may work for you. If you expect any more, it is a lottery. Second, only a small fraction of people who are looking for partner(s) are active on any dating apps. At the same time (anecdotally) a lot of people meet at a party organized by a friend, or through some special interest groups (i.e.: common friends, social groups or interests). Side note: I already had quite a few great dates with people I met on Facebook (first interacting on some groups). Then, with common interests, seeing how one interacts in public, and potentially - common friends, there is a much higher chance to have commonalities. Plus, they are more than a "business card".

savolai 7y ago
To be fair, if you genuinely reflect what you care about in your profile text, and only interact with people who do so too, Tinder can work too. Has for me anyway :) . Of course this relies somewhat on you doing some substantial swiping to find those profiles that do.
- stared 7y ago
  UX: The interface is pretty much against that (it requires at least 2 more click to see what's behind), and it seems to be intentional. Filtering - in software engineering terms, there is a difference between search with O(n) (going through all elements) and in O(log(n)) with a binary search. Let's assume that I would find 1% people good for dating (usually a tweet-length message is not enough). It is a lot of wasted time. Again, if you care more about looks than personality, then Tinder is a perfect tool. (Once I found a relationship on Tinder, and yes, the description stood out, but overall the signal-to-noise ratio is poor.) On OKC I can preselect for some things that are required.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    "Personality over looks" almost sounds like Nice Guy territory to me. It's dating. If you aren't even remotely attracted to the other person, then you're likely to waste both of yall's time with further action. You filter by looks all the time in the wild. Also, if you're willing to give people-you're-not-attracted-to a chance, how is Tinder any different? Are you saying you are never liked by someone on Tinder that you aren't attracted to? Nothing is stopping you from sticking around for their potentially amazing personality. I bet you just don't because you need some initial attraction like the rest of us whether online or at the bar. Usually this complaint has to do with men getting no matches. But it's basically men complaining that women with options don't pick them, and online dating sucks because it gives women too many options making it hard for them to compete. It's like country boys complaining about women moving to the city. The realities of dating were already brutal before online dating.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      > "Personality over looks" almost sounds like Nice Guy territory to me. It's dating. If you aren't even remotely attracted to the other person, then you're likely to waste both of yall's time with further action. You filter by looks all the time in the wild. Somewhat true, but in the real world you can grow attracted to someone who's appearance you initially did not have a positive reaction to. I know this from experience. This does not occur in online dating, which encourages treating people as commodities.
      - stared 7y ago
        You mean "Online Dating and the Death of the 'Mixed-Attractiveness' Couple Share" https://priceonomics.com/online-dating-and-the-death-of-the-mixed/ https://priceonomics.com/online-dating-and-the-death-of-the-... ?
    - stared 7y ago
      Oh, dear. Just because it works for you that way (and it's fine!) it does not mean it works for everyone that way. Sure, looks matter. But for me (given a similar age), I am 2-3 orders of magnitude (!) pickier in personality/goals/etc. You may say that for casual sex personality does not matter, but even then I want someone fun to talk to, safe, and drama-free. And for your record, I don't have a problem with getting matches. (Now in Asia, and as a European I get tons.) Also, it is maybe why I don't approach random strangers at a bar. Unless a science conference, rarely "fun to talk to".
dexen 7y ago
>other options are substantially worse Talk about misaligned incentives! The dearth of effective dating platforms is the expected end state of the current "pay per use" model. The popular sites earn more from repeat customers than from single-time customers. That is fine for general goods & services. However it goes against the usual idea for dating: to find a partner & establish a good, lasting relationship in as few "attempts" as possible. Users successfully coupling up are effectively "lost" for the platform that facilitated it. What would it take to build a sustainable dating platform? First up, it would need to benefit the most from a successful & permanent match, rather from repeated use. As much as I dislike Facebook for their abysmal handling of privacy, I figure FB Dating suffers less form misaligned incentives than standalone dating platforms. Presumably users will remain on FB proper anyway, whether their dates are successful or not. Come to think of it, the "traditional" (for lack of better word) society built on nuclear families just might have been geared that way - to benefit the most from people finding partners & becoming long term couples.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  It shouldn't be that hard to set up a dating site with aligned incentives - I had the idea of a site which requires a lot of personal data on signup, and deletes it for a fee at account deactivation . People pay huge premiums for matchmaking agencies, building an algorithm with similar incentives shouldn't be that infeasible...
- lazyjones 7y ago
  > The popular sites earn more from repeat customers than from single-time customers. > What would it take to build a sustainable dating platform? Between "earning more" and "sustainable" there's is a broad spectrum of possibilities. I know from past experience that it's absolutely possible to skip many deliberate ways of "earning more" and still be sustainable (even highly profitable). Perhaps you won't conquer the market without shady tactics nowadays when competition is fierce, but you certainly don't have to screw your customers to be highly successful.
- personlurking 7y ago
  >What would it take to build a sustainable dating platform? Since finding the right person is a numbers game, I'd say the best path is an easy path. Something between speed dating and a normal date, where the goal is to check for chemistry as well as advance past the initial, in-person interaction. Start with having a few like/dislike parameters met, then get you both face to face. Here's my idea for that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356401 If we simplified and just went for a real-world, slower version of speed dating, where each pair would get 15 minutes with each other, it wouldn't control for like/dislike parameters. IE: I definitely wouldn't date a smoker. Having it start online then move to real-world, asap, helps to match likes and dislikes more closely.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
I'm pretty sure all dating platforms suck because dating itself just kinda sucks and, as hard as it is to believe for the HN crowd, there are some problems you just can't fix with a website.

by stared 7y ago

savolai 7y ago

To be fair, if you genuinely reflect what you care about in your profile text, and only interact with people who do so too, Tinder can work too. Has for me anyway :) . Of course this relies somewhat on you doing some substantial swiping to find those profiles that do.

stared 7y ago
UX: The interface is pretty much against that (it requires at least 2 more click to see what's behind), and it seems to be intentional. Filtering - in software engineering terms, there is a difference between search with O(n) (going through all elements) and in O(log(n)) with a binary search. Let's assume that I would find 1% people good for dating (usually a tweet-length message is not enough). It is a lot of wasted time. Again, if you care more about looks than personality, then Tinder is a perfect tool. (Once I found a relationship on Tinder, and yes, the description stood out, but overall the signal-to-noise ratio is poor.) On OKC I can preselect for some things that are required.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  "Personality over looks" almost sounds like Nice Guy territory to me. It's dating. If you aren't even remotely attracted to the other person, then you're likely to waste both of yall's time with further action. You filter by looks all the time in the wild. Also, if you're willing to give people-you're-not-attracted-to a chance, how is Tinder any different? Are you saying you are never liked by someone on Tinder that you aren't attracted to? Nothing is stopping you from sticking around for their potentially amazing personality. I bet you just don't because you need some initial attraction like the rest of us whether online or at the bar. Usually this complaint has to do with men getting no matches. But it's basically men complaining that women with options don't pick them, and online dating sucks because it gives women too many options making it hard for them to compete. It's like country boys complaining about women moving to the city. The realities of dating were already brutal before online dating.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > "Personality over looks" almost sounds like Nice Guy territory to me. It's dating. If you aren't even remotely attracted to the other person, then you're likely to waste both of yall's time with further action. You filter by looks all the time in the wild. Somewhat true, but in the real world you can grow attracted to someone who's appearance you initially did not have a positive reaction to. I know this from experience. This does not occur in online dating, which encourages treating people as commodities.
    - stared 7y ago
      You mean "Online Dating and the Death of the 'Mixed-Attractiveness' Couple Share" https://priceonomics.com/online-dating-and-the-death-of-the-mixed/ https://priceonomics.com/online-dating-and-the-death-of-the-... ?
  - stared 7y ago
    Oh, dear. Just because it works for you that way (and it's fine!) it does not mean it works for everyone that way. Sure, looks matter. But for me (given a similar age), I am 2-3 orders of magnitude (!) pickier in personality/goals/etc. You may say that for casual sex personality does not matter, but even then I want someone fun to talk to, safe, and drama-free. And for your record, I don't have a problem with getting matches. (Now in Asia, and as a European I get tons.) Also, it is maybe why I don't approach random strangers at a bar. Unless a science conference, rarely "fun to talk to".

dexen 7y ago

>other options are substantially worse Talk about misaligned incentives! The dearth of effective dating platforms is the expected end state of the current "pay per use" model. The popular sites earn more from repeat customers than from single-time customers. That is fine for general goods & services. However it goes against the usual idea for dating: to find a partner & establish a good, lasting relationship in as few "attempts" as possible. Users successfully coupling up are effectively "lost" for the platform that facilitated it. What would it take to build a sustainable dating platform? First up, it would need to benefit the most from a successful & permanent match, rather from repeated use. As much as I dislike Facebook for their abysmal handling of privacy, I figure FB Dating suffers less form misaligned incentives than standalone dating platforms. Presumably users will remain on FB proper anyway, whether their dates are successful or not. Come to think of it, the "traditional" (for lack of better word) society built on nuclear families just might have been geared that way - to benefit the most from people finding partners & becoming long term couples.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago
It shouldn't be that hard to set up a dating site with aligned incentives - I had the idea of a site which requires a lot of personal data on signup, and deletes it for a fee at account deactivation . People pay huge premiums for matchmaking agencies, building an algorithm with similar incentives shouldn't be that infeasible...
lazyjones 7y ago
> The popular sites earn more from repeat customers than from single-time customers. > What would it take to build a sustainable dating platform? Between "earning more" and "sustainable" there's is a broad spectrum of possibilities. I know from past experience that it's absolutely possible to skip many deliberate ways of "earning more" and still be sustainable (even highly profitable). Perhaps you won't conquer the market without shady tactics nowadays when competition is fierce, but you certainly don't have to screw your customers to be highly successful.
personlurking 7y ago
>What would it take to build a sustainable dating platform? Since finding the right person is a numbers game, I'd say the best path is an easy path. Something between speed dating and a normal date, where the goal is to check for chemistry as well as advance past the initial, in-person interaction. Start with having a few like/dislike parameters met, then get you both face to face. Here's my idea for that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356401 If we simplified and just went for a real-world, slower version of speed dating, where each pair would get 15 minutes with each other, it wouldn't control for like/dislike parameters. IE: I definitely wouldn't date a smoker. Having it start online then move to real-world, asap, helps to match likes and dislikes more closely.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

I'm pretty sure all dating platforms suck because dating itself just kinda sucks and, as hard as it is to believe for the HN crowd, there are some problems you just can't fix with a website.