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I don't know if you are aware of the specific details of what Ashley Madison did, but basically they were using bots to convince men that there were actual wome

I don't know if you are aware of the specific details of what Ashley Madison did, but basically they were using bots to convince men that there were actual women interested in meeting (if only the use paid the membership fee to enable messaging), when by-and-large there were none. It was a scam. I mean, most dating websites use a series of tricks of messaging and "matches" to trick people into thinking there are more people available than there actual are. I did a study of eHarmony years ago and came to the conclusion that only 10% of all "matches" were people who had the capability of returning a message. But Ashley Madison took it to a whole new level of creating accounts ran by bots that actively messaged people. IIRC, it was much more on the order of 99% of activity.

sandworm101 7y ago
There werent any women on AM. When the story broke they couldnt find anyone who actually had an affair. It was scams all the way down. (And when the mounties responded after the hack there wasnt any evidence either. A so-called unicorn had no cohesive security program.)
- buboard 7y ago
  wow that's ... in a way ... sad. pretty telling about the state of relationships in this day
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Well, it's not really that sad that there was no one actually having affairs on Ashley Madison.
lifeisstillgood 7y ago
Do you have that study - sounds an interesting read.
- sp332 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125704
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    I think lifeisstillgood was asking for the eHarmony study.
    - lifeisstillgood 7y ago
      Yes I was looking for the study behind moron4hire's comment: I did a study of eHarmony years ago and came to the conclusion that only 10% of all "matches" were people who had the capability of returning a message. I can quite believe that dating sites manipulate the numbers to look better themselves, and weirdly it's something that with my old school hat on is "not worth regulating" - but as we move to a world where most (?) people will find a partner online this way, being able to trust those numbers would be paramount. (oddly perhaps such regulation would kill off the market. One of my wife's now divorced friends showed me her Tinder matches - and boy the pickings are poor for middle aged women. Now if you showed a parade of out of shape morons and then said actually only 2 of them are available, people might just stop the whole market and take up needlepoint)
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Old blog, now gone, sorry :(
aswanson 7y ago
lol, I didnt know that. It was basically an extortion racket.
omega3 7y ago
> I did a study of eHarmony years ago and came to the conclusion that only 10% of all "matches" were people who had the capability of returning a message. Do you mind expanding as to how you were able to establish this?
- MiroF 7y ago
  Not the OP, but on Bumble, I matched with someone who I knew - she showed me her app and no such match had appeared on her app. I think this sort of behavior is not uncommon.
  - MiddleEndian 7y ago
    Any more info on this or maybe some screen shots? I'm not on the market but given the complaints about the current state of dating apps I think lots of people would be curious to see this.
    - MiroF 7y ago
      Unfortunately I don't have screenshots. I'm happy to provide more info - for instance, to those who might say "she just didn't want to acknowledge you had matched," I saw it with my own eyes and also we were already involved with each other at the time. FWIW, my perception is that this is not the case on Tinder, but obviously can't be sure.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  At the time (mind you, this was 10 years ago) eHarmony had a "tell": paid-member profiles were rendered subtly differently than free ones. I got fed up with using the site and decided I was just going to game it and see what I could learn, so I started taking meticulous notes on what I saw. I took every match that was sent, I kept notes on how I replied, and eventually some patterns emerged. Eventually had it confirmed when a person I was matched with, and went on a date with, decided to let her membership lapse and suddenly her profile was rendered differently. eHarmony's system only let you message people from a daily, "curated" list of matches. On any given day, you'd get 6 or 7 profiles on your email to review and decide to message or not. I'm sure you just did the math, 10% of 7 is less than one. Less than one viable connection a day. Once I got past that "90% of these matches are dead ends" hurdle, it turned out about 50% of the people who were capable of replying actually did. I don't remember the exact breakdown, but basically there were a number of questionnaires you why through before getting through to love messages and asking people out. It was essentially a 50/50 filter at each step. IIRC, it was something like a half a percent chance that any profile eHarmony sent you would end up in an actual date. I suppose dating sites figure, if someone finds their soul mate, they won't need to pay for a membership anymore, so don't actually match anyone, just strong them along for as long as possible.

sandworm101 7y ago

There werent any women on AM. When the story broke they couldnt find anyone who actually had an affair. It was scams all the way down. (And when the mounties responded after the hack there wasnt any evidence either. A so-called unicorn had no cohesive security program.)

buboard 7y ago
wow that's ... in a way ... sad. pretty telling about the state of relationships in this day
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Well, it's not really that sad that there was no one actually having affairs on Ashley Madison.

lifeisstillgood 7y ago

Do you have that study - sounds an interesting read.

sp332 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125704
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  I think lifeisstillgood was asking for the eHarmony study.
  - lifeisstillgood 7y ago
    Yes I was looking for the study behind moron4hire's comment: I did a study of eHarmony years ago and came to the conclusion that only 10% of all "matches" were people who had the capability of returning a message. I can quite believe that dating sites manipulate the numbers to look better themselves, and weirdly it's something that with my old school hat on is "not worth regulating" - but as we move to a world where most (?) people will find a partner online this way, being able to trust those numbers would be paramount. (oddly perhaps such regulation would kill off the market. One of my wife's now divorced friends showed me her Tinder matches - and boy the pickings are poor for middle aged women. Now if you showed a parade of out of shape morons and then said actually only 2 of them are available, people might just stop the whole market and take up needlepoint)
moron4hire 7y ago
Old blog, now gone, sorry :(

aswanson 7y ago

lol, I didnt know that. It was basically an extortion racket.

omega3 7y ago

> I did a study of eHarmony years ago and came to the conclusion that only 10% of all "matches" were people who had the capability of returning a message. Do you mind expanding as to how you were able to establish this?

MiroF 7y ago
Not the OP, but on Bumble, I matched with someone who I knew - she showed me her app and no such match had appeared on her app. I think this sort of behavior is not uncommon.
- MiddleEndian 7y ago
  Any more info on this or maybe some screen shots? I'm not on the market but given the complaints about the current state of dating apps I think lots of people would be curious to see this.
  - MiroF 7y ago
    Unfortunately I don't have screenshots. I'm happy to provide more info - for instance, to those who might say "she just didn't want to acknowledge you had matched," I saw it with my own eyes and also we were already involved with each other at the time. FWIW, my perception is that this is not the case on Tinder, but obviously can't be sure.
moron4hire 7y ago
At the time (mind you, this was 10 years ago) eHarmony had a "tell": paid-member profiles were rendered subtly differently than free ones. I got fed up with using the site and decided I was just going to game it and see what I could learn, so I started taking meticulous notes on what I saw. I took every match that was sent, I kept notes on how I replied, and eventually some patterns emerged. Eventually had it confirmed when a person I was matched with, and went on a date with, decided to let her membership lapse and suddenly her profile was rendered differently. eHarmony's system only let you message people from a daily, "curated" list of matches. On any given day, you'd get 6 or 7 profiles on your email to review and decide to message or not. I'm sure you just did the math, 10% of 7 is less than one. Less than one viable connection a day. Once I got past that "90% of these matches are dead ends" hurdle, it turned out about 50% of the people who were capable of replying actually did. I don't remember the exact breakdown, but basically there were a number of questionnaires you why through before getting through to love messages and asking people out. It was essentially a 50/50 filter at each step. IIRC, it was something like a half a percent chance that any profile eHarmony sent you would end up in an actual date. I suppose dating sites figure, if someone finds their soul mate, they won't need to pay for a membership anymore, so don't actually match anyone, just strong them along for as long as possible.