6 ms·

Short answer? They are all trash and the space is ripe for disruption. The best of the bunch is probably Hinge, Bumble, and Coffee Meets Bagel. But like I said

by dvt 7y ago

Short answer? They are all trash and the space is ripe for disruption. The best of the bunch is probably Hinge, Bumble, and Coffee Meets Bagel. But like I said, getting a date off these apps is like pulling teeth. I've reverted to asking girls out in person at coffee shops, social gatherings, etc. Even if you get rejected, it at least makes for a good story.

busymom0 7y ago
What would you change if you were to build a new dating app to disrupt the market?
- i_am_proteus 7y ago
  Human nature.
- dvt 7y ago
  I have a lot of thoughts on this, so excuse the long post (maybe I'll write a blog post on it at some point): First, there's a clear (and artificial) skewing of supply-demand curves. There are probably like 30 (active) guys for every 1 (active) girl on these apps (looking at you, Tinder). This creates an imbalance where women are incredibly selective while men end up being incredibly non-selective (e.g. swipe right on everything). Clearly, this needs to be addressed -- this "marketplace" is a sham. Second of all, a lot of women (but also men) use dating apps to increase their social following (be it Snapchat or Instagram). This probably only pertains to people in their 20s or 30s, but it's a huge problem when trying to seriously find someone to date. Third -- the botpocalypse. About 70% of my matches on Tinder this past year (I actually quit all dating apps around 4 months ago) have been bots. Not sure if this is a tractable problem, but after a while, it just gets old. At this point, matching with bots is a meme on /r/Tinder, for example. Fourth, there needs to be an in-app incentive to meet in real life. I feel that my generation (millennials) are kind of broken. I blow people's minds when I tell them that I work remotely at a coffee shop and started making friends with people there, hanging out, etc. In other words, we absolutely suck at real-life social interaction. So we need these apps to "nudge" in the right direction. A potential solution would be a cross between a meetup and a date. Fifth, I think hookup culture really is starting to show its dark side. Tinder was very popular as a hookup app a few years ago, but nowadays it's more or less abandoned. People actually want deep and long-lasting connections. None of the apps out there really attempt to solve this. It's a tough problem to solve because building a relationship (like building a friendship) takes time. Anyway, these are some issues I have with dating apps off the top of my head. I will say that it also probably doesn't help that I live in LA, which is a pretty superficial city to begin with. But the women are gorgeous, so I probably shouldn't complain :)
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    > First, there's a clear (and artificial) skewing of supply-demand curves. What makes it artificial? Also, there's strong evidence that roughly twice as many women have reproduced than men across human history [0], so if we're reducing it to a number game women have always had the ability to be more picky than guys. What's different today is Tinder/OLD let's them access a much larger area, whereas in the past they would have to find a partner within their local community. Dating apps may look unfair on paper but they're just a more efficient dating market than in times past. So to sum up my point, I'm struggling to see a solution here. Human nature can't be rewritten, no matter how hard we try. [0] https://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/the-missing-men-in-your-family-tree/ https://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/the-missing-...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - dvt 7y ago
      Even if this were true (the research is speculative at best), the dating app pool is skewed far worse than a 1:2 F:M ratio. > ... they're just a more efficient dating market than in times past. This might be true if women were actually going on dates and starting relationships. Except that no one is. We are a lonely bunch[1]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2019/05/03/millennials-and-the-loneliness-epidemic/#51359f107676 https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2019/05/03/millennials...
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        Disappointing tbh..
    - jorvi 7y ago
      > So to sum up my point, I'm struggling to see a solution here. Human nature can't be rewritten, no matter how hard we try. You could write an algorithm that subtly punishes women for being too picky and at the same time punishes men for being unselective (only swiping right, then filtering later). Of course, as soon as it comes out that you are rebalancing the market that way no one will use your app anymore, but it would be a theoretical way to bring the numbers closer together.
- friendzis 7y ago
  Disincentivise shallow profiles. Women Tinder profiles are a very good example of antithesis: there are a few carefully selected pictures. The more involved profiles may feature link to an Instagram (with more carefully-picked pictures) and a few lines that rarely offer anything to construct a personal introductory message. Turn that around completely. Have users put in effort in being found. I doubt that would get much attention to "disrupt" the market
  - fragmede 7y ago
    Arguably that's already the case for men. Poor pictures and a terrible profile pic is not going to get you many matches. To do well on Tinder, have a photog friend shoot some semi-professional SLR-shot profile pics, have someone help you write the text in your profile, and you'll do much better. FWIW, the same goes for any woman who's less-than-model-hot, (for mainstream, culture-centric definitions of beauty). Thing is, for the beautiful people, all they need is one really good picture, and a pizza emoji as their profile text, and they're all set. Unless you hide profile pictures (which tbf, okcupid tried for a brief second) I don't see a way to change that.
LilBytes 7y ago
I can vouch for Bumble and making an arse for yourself in public. They both have worked for me with varying success. My significant other was entrapped on Bumble (/s)
CuriouslyC 7y ago
Hinge and Coffee Meets Bagel are trash outside of extremely large metro areas. Bumble is ok, it's more user friendly than Tinder. OkCupid has a terrible user interface but in terms of pulling dates it's been the best for me. Good on you for talking to girls directly, that really is the way to go. Super hot women don't tend to bother with online dating, and if you can approach confidently you'll be able to land much hotter women in person than online anyhow.
- masonic 7y ago
  OKC wasn't useless back when usernames were unique and persistent; you could save the URLs for review later.

by dvt 7y ago

busymom0 7y ago

What would you change if you were to build a new dating app to disrupt the market?

i_am_proteus 7y ago
Human nature.
dvt 7y ago
I have a lot of thoughts on this, so excuse the long post (maybe I'll write a blog post on it at some point): First, there's a clear (and artificial) skewing of supply-demand curves. There are probably like 30 (active) guys for every 1 (active) girl on these apps (looking at you, Tinder). This creates an imbalance where women are incredibly selective while men end up being incredibly non-selective (e.g. swipe right on everything). Clearly, this needs to be addressed -- this "marketplace" is a sham. Second of all, a lot of women (but also men) use dating apps to increase their social following (be it Snapchat or Instagram). This probably only pertains to people in their 20s or 30s, but it's a huge problem when trying to seriously find someone to date. Third -- the botpocalypse. About 70% of my matches on Tinder this past year (I actually quit all dating apps around 4 months ago) have been bots. Not sure if this is a tractable problem, but after a while, it just gets old. At this point, matching with bots is a meme on /r/Tinder, for example. Fourth, there needs to be an in-app incentive to meet in real life. I feel that my generation (millennials) are kind of broken. I blow people's minds when I tell them that I work remotely at a coffee shop and started making friends with people there, hanging out, etc. In other words, we absolutely suck at real-life social interaction. So we need these apps to "nudge" in the right direction. A potential solution would be a cross between a meetup and a date. Fifth, I think hookup culture really is starting to show its dark side. Tinder was very popular as a hookup app a few years ago, but nowadays it's more or less abandoned. People actually want deep and long-lasting connections. None of the apps out there really attempt to solve this. It's a tough problem to solve because building a relationship (like building a friendship) takes time. Anyway, these are some issues I have with dating apps off the top of my head. I will say that it also probably doesn't help that I live in LA, which is a pretty superficial city to begin with. But the women are gorgeous, so I probably shouldn't complain :)
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  > First, there's a clear (and artificial) skewing of supply-demand curves. What makes it artificial? Also, there's strong evidence that roughly twice as many women have reproduced than men across human history [0], so if we're reducing it to a number game women have always had the ability to be more picky than guys. What's different today is Tinder/OLD let's them access a much larger area, whereas in the past they would have to find a partner within their local community. Dating apps may look unfair on paper but they're just a more efficient dating market than in times past. So to sum up my point, I'm struggling to see a solution here. Human nature can't be rewritten, no matter how hard we try. [0] https://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/the-missing-men-in-your-family-tree/ https://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/the-missing-...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dvt 7y ago
    Even if this were true (the research is speculative at best), the dating app pool is skewed far worse than a 1:2 F:M ratio. > ... they're just a more efficient dating market than in times past. This might be true if women were actually going on dates and starting relationships. Except that no one is. We are a lonely bunch[1]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2019/05/03/millennials-and-the-loneliness-epidemic/#51359f107676 https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2019/05/03/millennials...
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Disappointing tbh..
  - jorvi 7y ago
    > So to sum up my point, I'm struggling to see a solution here. Human nature can't be rewritten, no matter how hard we try. You could write an algorithm that subtly punishes women for being too picky and at the same time punishes men for being unselective (only swiping right, then filtering later). Of course, as soon as it comes out that you are rebalancing the market that way no one will use your app anymore, but it would be a theoretical way to bring the numbers closer together.
friendzis 7y ago
Disincentivise shallow profiles. Women Tinder profiles are a very good example of antithesis: there are a few carefully selected pictures. The more involved profiles may feature link to an Instagram (with more carefully-picked pictures) and a few lines that rarely offer anything to construct a personal introductory message. Turn that around completely. Have users put in effort in being found. I doubt that would get much attention to "disrupt" the market
- fragmede 7y ago
  Arguably that's already the case for men. Poor pictures and a terrible profile pic is not going to get you many matches. To do well on Tinder, have a photog friend shoot some semi-professional SLR-shot profile pics, have someone help you write the text in your profile, and you'll do much better. FWIW, the same goes for any woman who's less-than-model-hot, (for mainstream, culture-centric definitions of beauty). Thing is, for the beautiful people, all they need is one really good picture, and a pizza emoji as their profile text, and they're all set. Unless you hide profile pictures (which tbf, okcupid tried for a brief second) I don't see a way to change that.

LilBytes 7y ago

I can vouch for Bumble and making an arse for yourself in public. They both have worked for me with varying success. My significant other was entrapped on Bumble (/s)

CuriouslyC 7y ago

Hinge and Coffee Meets Bagel are trash outside of extremely large metro areas. Bumble is ok, it's more user friendly than Tinder. OkCupid has a terrible user interface but in terms of pulling dates it's been the best for me. Good on you for talking to girls directly, that really is the way to go. Super hot women don't tend to bother with online dating, and if you can approach confidently you'll be able to land much hotter women in person than online anyhow.

masonic 7y ago
OKC wasn't useless back when usernames were unique and persistent; you could save the URLs for review later.