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Cached OkCupid Article: Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating

490 points by JacobAldridge 16y ago

pyre 16y ago
It's sort of funny how removing the article has spawned a bit of the Streisand Effect, though I gather it's probably only limited to our little corner of the web. And even at that, it would probably just 'look weird' if they were still hosting the article after the acquisition, regardless of the attention that removing it draws.
- famousactress 16y ago
  I had to look it up.. The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of perversely causing the information to be publicized more widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no contrary action had been attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
  - mixmax 16y ago
    Very fitting username
rhizome 16y ago
I must have missed the story on this page's apparent disappearance or whatever.
- smokinn 16y ago
  Just today OkCupid got bought by IAC which also owns match.com which they are critical of in that post.
  - presidentender 16y ago
    Time to enter the online dating space, I guess.
    - Herald_MJ 16y ago
      Considering OKCupid's slogan for a while was "always free", I highly doubt that they will switch to a pay-to-use model.
      - stcredzero 16y ago
        But match.com might still ruin the site by trying too hard with the upsell.
      - rhizome 16y ago
        Correct. They will likely use the Nerve/SpringStreet/AdultFriendFinder model of ruining the free options so that the pay ones look attractive.
    - smokinn 16y ago
      I doubt it. IAC, the parent company of match.com owns lots of web properties. It's not like match.com now owns okcupid and will use them as they please. Most likely, okcupid ads may become exclusively for IAC sites (match.com, blackpeoplemeet, asianpeoplemeet, [niche]peoplemeet, other dating properties) and they may make the subscription offers a little more prominent (right now they're pretty hidden on okcupid) but I doubt it'll go much further than that. Free and paid are complementary. A big chunk of upgrades on paid sites come from people who were driven there from free sites.
      - _delirium 16y ago
        > A big chunk of upgrades on paid sites come from people who were driven there from free sites. If this post is correct that the free sites provide a better user experience, why would people move from them to the pay sites? Just out of a lack of information?
siculars 16y ago
hey, i'm all for selling out but im not into rewriting history. either leave the post or write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed. dont go rewriting history by trying to delete it.
- lwhi 16y ago
  I signed up for OkCupid years ago, probably around 2005/6 .. I liked the site a lot. The site always had a lot of emphasis on tests and quizes - and had a main OkCupid test, which was used to introduce the site and categorise each new member into different persona-types. I remember, in the test, there was the line "if you have any STDs please go .. " with a link to match.com. I expect that's been 'cleansed' from the site too :)
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  > write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.
  - apgwoz 16y ago
    > The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed. It's certainly not wrong, but something has changed. OkCupid now reports to match.com, which is among the largest paid dating sites in the world. edit I don't know the specifics, but IAC owns Match.com, and also OkCupid, but does that mean that Match.com oversees OkCupid? My statement above might be wrong on that alone.
    - pavel_lishin 16y ago
      Oh, I meant nothing changed in their original analysis of match.com.
      - jlees 16y ago
        Well, presumably now they have access to the real, not benefit-of-the-doubt, numbers. Which only makes Match.com look worse...
citricsquid 16y ago
I'm not sure it's the end of the world it was deleted, it was a conflict of interest and leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for, but on the whole I don't think the article was that bad. It just pointed out that paid dating sites are tricky with their marketing.
- holman 16y ago
  leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for I don't think that strategy has been working out for them very well so far.
bmm6o 16y ago
It appears to be gone. Anyone have a copy?
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  Here's a mirror/copy/screenshot (trying to hit all the browser text search keywords; it's not actually a screenshot): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3232537/html/search.html http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3232537/html/search.html
dangero 16y ago
I have liked OKCupid's posts in the past, but this one is clearly propaganda. There's a pretty obvious flaw in this argument: "It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com." The data to back it up is based on Match.com press kit: "12 couples got married or engaged today thanks to Match.com" What they're missing is that a lot of people get married or engaged while subscribing to Match.com, but not due to Match.com. Heck, my roommate did. It's not an exclusive arrangement. In fact, it's pretty likely that if someone is subscribing to Match.com they are also dating outside of Match.com.
- orangecat 16y ago
  The other flaw is that by definition people on dating sites are not currently in a relationship (well, usually), so of course they're less likely to get married in the near future. I suspect the 12.4 ratio would be similar for active OKCupid users.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    > (well, usually), Not true for OKC. Very poly friendly.
    - ahlatimer 16y ago
      It might appear so, but a friend of mine who's in a poly relationship gets harassed fairly frequently on OKC because she's married.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        Oh yeah? I've only ever ...heard otherwise, and I'm pretty sure that several of the founders are poly as well. I could be remembering that incorrectly...
      - araneae 16y ago
        I've been on OKC for about 8 years, been poly on there, met poly girls there, had poly friends there, never once heard of anyone getting harassed for polyitude. I'm not saying it didn't happen... but it might be kind of like saying "planes aren't safe, I had a friend that was in a plane crash."
alphadog 16y ago
It's called "harmonization". China does it all the time.
- reinhardt 16y ago
  Next time it will probably be "eHarmonization".
weeksie 16y ago
The problem with free dating sites is that they have to be fucking enormous to make any money. OkC is an amazing product with a huge user base and guess what? They had a tiny office and weren't making much money, then they were bought by (shock) a dating site with a sustainable business. IAC/Match sucks but they understand something the OkC guys don't—how to make money from their product.
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  Do you have any idea how much they were making? http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-openness-is-the-key-to-success/ http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-open... suggests $15 million in revenues. And selling a business with $6 million in investment for $50 million is likely to be lucrative enough, anyway (and you'd hope that they were turning some profits to justify the $50 million.)
  - weeksie 16y ago
    From what I can tell, the article you linked says that PoF is making $15mm in revenue. If OkC were making 15mm in revenues why in the world would they sell for $50mm? That just doesn't add up. Their overhead outside of bandwidth costs wasn't that high, they employ 10-15 (I think) employees and have a small office in Chelsea or sommat. Their profits would be enormous if they were generating anything near that.
jewgonewild 16y ago
I really hope that OKC keeps publishing articles about the online dating scene. They had some good insight about a lot of different online dating phenomena. Match seems like a shady outfit that would not want to publicize this type of data.
chailatte 16y ago
For most American women a $19/month subscription is a good investment for them to sleep around for a while with some bad boys, and when the time comes, marry a chump who will pay her to quit her job, go to coffeehouses and have nice lunches with the other married girls, or get her nails done at the cost of maybe $15k a year. Then maybe divorce him a few years later for a nice change of $100k. Not a bad return at all.
kenjackson 16y ago
It's unclear to me why I shouldn't pay for an online dating site from reading that article? The only thing that he says that really drives that point is that they're incentivized for you to fail. But I'm not sure I buy that, since churn is probably higher when you get no dates than when you're dating but maybe just haven't found the "one" (if that's what you're looking for). The main argument seems to be that number of profiles and active profiles are different. It seems like the takeaway to me is to be cautious and try to learn the number of active profiles.
- araneae 16y ago
  The point I got from it is that the girls worth dating don't pay for it. Girls that don't have to work to get guys might sign up for a free site "just for fun" but they certainly would never pay for a dating service.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    The author certainly doesn't make that point clear. For one, I don't believe it, but more importantly there's no evidence in the post of it.
    - araneae 16y ago
      Well, it's the first line of the post. But they don't go into that aspect as much as I'd like, because I think it's the more important one. I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because desperation is an honest signal of poor quality. But that's just anecdote.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because desperation is an honest signal of poor quality. That's the same thing people say about free software. :-) With that said, I think you may confuse desperation with efficiency. If I were single in this day and age, I would certainly use pay dating sites (assuming prices were reasonable). Not because I'd be desperate, but it widens your network considerably, and you don't have to waste time at bars, clubs, social mixers, etc... And given the number of colleagues and friends who have met people online -- I'd say the superficial quality at least (looks, jobs, education, humor) seem to be higher than average. In any case, the article provided no evidence either way. What would have been useful is for them to show proof that women on pay sites are less desireable than women from say, MySpace ;-)
pointpointclick 16y ago
We have always been at war with Oceania.
- Legion 16y ago
  So are we Eurasia, or Eastasia?
  - jacques_chester 16y ago
    Whichever has always been at war with Oceania. Please report to minitrue.
citadrianne 16y ago
OKCupid responds: http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-our-matchcom-bashing-blog-post http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-ou...
- Joakal 16y ago
  "But Match.com didn't ask OKCupid to take down the post, CEO Sam Yagan told The Observer, it was just the "common sense thing to do."" "Furthermore, the data that OKCupid gathered from Match.com's public filings and press kit were not completely accurate, he said, which he realized once he saw the real data." snip "And even though the two sites are now playing for the same team, it'll be business as usual at OKCupid's Midtown office, he said. OKCupid will remain free and OKTrends will keep publishing the popular research it culls from its members. (Data from Match.com and its affiliated sites will not be included.)" So, rather than putting up a correction to the previous blog post that due to fresh data showing something different; they decided to take it down. I suppose either because Match.com either refuses to release the data, the blog post is confirmed to be true or they wanted to appease the new owners.
  - pavel_lishin 16y ago
    For a company that's usually so good about publicity, it really seems like they fucked up here.
joelrunyon 16y ago
Still wondering why I should care...
maeon3 16y ago
UNDELETED! Google Cache copy (for when the Google Cache expires) http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...
GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
I love this article, and I always loved OkCupid for their statistical analysis and myth debunking. I am very saddened that they had to join their competitor. O well.
timothychung 16y ago
the original link is dead to me. Clicked text only version and it works. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2&hl=zh-TW&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuo...

490 points by JacobAldridge 16y ago

pyre 16y ago

It's sort of funny how removing the article has spawned a bit of the Streisand Effect, though I gather it's probably only limited to our little corner of the web. And even at that, it would probably just 'look weird' if they were still hosting the article after the acquisition, regardless of the attention that removing it draws.

famousactress 16y ago
I had to look it up.. The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of perversely causing the information to be publicized more widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no contrary action had been attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
- mixmax 16y ago
  Very fitting username

rhizome 16y ago

I must have missed the story on this page's apparent disappearance or whatever.

smokinn 16y ago
Just today OkCupid got bought by IAC which also owns match.com which they are critical of in that post.
- presidentender 16y ago
  Time to enter the online dating space, I guess.
  - Herald_MJ 16y ago
    Considering OKCupid's slogan for a while was "always free", I highly doubt that they will switch to a pay-to-use model.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      But match.com might still ruin the site by trying too hard with the upsell.
    - rhizome 16y ago
      Correct. They will likely use the Nerve/SpringStreet/AdultFriendFinder model of ruining the free options so that the pay ones look attractive.
  - smokinn 16y ago
    I doubt it. IAC, the parent company of match.com owns lots of web properties. It's not like match.com now owns okcupid and will use them as they please. Most likely, okcupid ads may become exclusively for IAC sites (match.com, blackpeoplemeet, asianpeoplemeet, [niche]peoplemeet, other dating properties) and they may make the subscription offers a little more prominent (right now they're pretty hidden on okcupid) but I doubt it'll go much further than that. Free and paid are complementary. A big chunk of upgrades on paid sites come from people who were driven there from free sites.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      > A big chunk of upgrades on paid sites come from people who were driven there from free sites. If this post is correct that the free sites provide a better user experience, why would people move from them to the pay sites? Just out of a lack of information?

siculars 16y ago

hey, i'm all for selling out but im not into rewriting history. either leave the post or write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed. dont go rewriting history by trying to delete it.

lwhi 16y ago
I signed up for OkCupid years ago, probably around 2005/6 .. I liked the site a lot. The site always had a lot of emphasis on tests and quizes - and had a main OkCupid test, which was used to introduce the site and categorise each new member into different persona-types. I remember, in the test, there was the line "if you have any STDs please go .. " with a link to match.com. I expect that's been 'cleansed' from the site too :)
pavel_lishin 16y ago
> write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.
- apgwoz 16y ago
  > The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed. It's certainly not wrong, but something has changed. OkCupid now reports to match.com, which is among the largest paid dating sites in the world. edit I don't know the specifics, but IAC owns Match.com, and also OkCupid, but does that mean that Match.com oversees OkCupid? My statement above might be wrong on that alone.
  - pavel_lishin 16y ago
    Oh, I meant nothing changed in their original analysis of match.com.
    - jlees 16y ago
      Well, presumably now they have access to the real, not benefit-of-the-doubt, numbers. Which only makes Match.com look worse...

citricsquid 16y ago

I'm not sure it's the end of the world it was deleted, it was a conflict of interest and leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for, but on the whole I don't think the article was that bad. It just pointed out that paid dating sites are tricky with their marketing.

holman 16y ago
leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for I don't think that strategy has been working out for them very well so far.

bmm6o 16y ago

It appears to be gone. Anyone have a copy?

w1ntermute 16y ago
Here's a mirror/copy/screenshot (trying to hit all the browser text search keywords; it's not actually a screenshot): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3232537/html/search.html http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3232537/html/search.html

dangero 16y ago

I have liked OKCupid's posts in the past, but this one is clearly propaganda. There's a pretty obvious flaw in this argument: "It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com." The data to back it up is based on Match.com press kit: "12 couples got married or engaged today thanks to Match.com" What they're missing is that a lot of people get married or engaged while subscribing to Match.com, but not due to Match.com. Heck, my roommate did. It's not an exclusive arrangement. In fact, it's pretty likely that if someone is subscribing to Match.com they are also dating outside of Match.com.

orangecat 16y ago
The other flaw is that by definition people on dating sites are not currently in a relationship (well, usually), so of course they're less likely to get married in the near future. I suspect the 12.4 ratio would be similar for active OKCupid users.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  > (well, usually), Not true for OKC. Very poly friendly.
  - ahlatimer 16y ago
    It might appear so, but a friend of mine who's in a poly relationship gets harassed fairly frequently on OKC because she's married.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      Oh yeah? I've only ever ...heard otherwise, and I'm pretty sure that several of the founders are poly as well. I could be remembering that incorrectly...
    - araneae 16y ago
      I've been on OKC for about 8 years, been poly on there, met poly girls there, had poly friends there, never once heard of anyone getting harassed for polyitude. I'm not saying it didn't happen... but it might be kind of like saying "planes aren't safe, I had a friend that was in a plane crash."

alphadog 16y ago

It's called "harmonization". China does it all the time.

reinhardt 16y ago
Next time it will probably be "eHarmonization".

weeksie 16y ago

The problem with free dating sites is that they have to be fucking enormous to make any money. OkC is an amazing product with a huge user base and guess what? They had a tiny office and weren't making much money, then they were bought by (shock) a dating site with a sustainable business. IAC/Match sucks but they understand something the OkC guys don't—how to make money from their product.

JoachimSchipper 16y ago
Do you have any idea how much they were making? http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-openness-is-the-key-to-success/ http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-open... suggests $15 million in revenues. And selling a business with $6 million in investment for $50 million is likely to be lucrative enough, anyway (and you'd hope that they were turning some profits to justify the $50 million.)
- weeksie 16y ago
  From what I can tell, the article you linked says that PoF is making $15mm in revenue. If OkC were making 15mm in revenues why in the world would they sell for $50mm? That just doesn't add up. Their overhead outside of bandwidth costs wasn't that high, they employ 10-15 (I think) employees and have a small office in Chelsea or sommat. Their profits would be enormous if they were generating anything near that.

jewgonewild 16y ago

I really hope that OKC keeps publishing articles about the online dating scene. They had some good insight about a lot of different online dating phenomena. Match seems like a shady outfit that would not want to publicize this type of data.

chailatte 16y ago

For most American women a $19/month subscription is a good investment for them to sleep around for a while with some bad boys, and when the time comes, marry a chump who will pay her to quit her job, go to coffeehouses and have nice lunches with the other married girls, or get her nails done at the cost of maybe $15k a year. Then maybe divorce him a few years later for a nice change of $100k. Not a bad return at all.

kenjackson 16y ago

It's unclear to me why I shouldn't pay for an online dating site from reading that article? The only thing that he says that really drives that point is that they're incentivized for you to fail. But I'm not sure I buy that, since churn is probably higher when you get no dates than when you're dating but maybe just haven't found the "one" (if that's what you're looking for). The main argument seems to be that number of profiles and active profiles are different. It seems like the takeaway to me is to be cautious and try to learn the number of active profiles.

araneae 16y ago
The point I got from it is that the girls worth dating don't pay for it. Girls that don't have to work to get guys might sign up for a free site "just for fun" but they certainly would never pay for a dating service.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  The author certainly doesn't make that point clear. For one, I don't believe it, but more importantly there's no evidence in the post of it.
  - araneae 16y ago
    Well, it's the first line of the post. But they don't go into that aspect as much as I'd like, because I think it's the more important one. I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because desperation is an honest signal of poor quality. But that's just anecdote.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because desperation is an honest signal of poor quality. That's the same thing people say about free software. :-) With that said, I think you may confuse desperation with efficiency. If I were single in this day and age, I would certainly use pay dating sites (assuming prices were reasonable). Not because I'd be desperate, but it widens your network considerably, and you don't have to waste time at bars, clubs, social mixers, etc... And given the number of colleagues and friends who have met people online -- I'd say the superficial quality at least (looks, jobs, education, humor) seem to be higher than average. In any case, the article provided no evidence either way. What would have been useful is for them to show proof that women on pay sites are less desireable than women from say, MySpace ;-)

pointpointclick 16y ago

We have always been at war with Oceania.

Legion 16y ago
So are we Eurasia, or Eastasia?
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  Whichever has always been at war with Oceania. Please report to minitrue.

citadrianne 16y ago

OKCupid responds: http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-our-matchcom-bashing-blog-post http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-ou...

Joakal 16y ago
"But Match.com didn't ask OKCupid to take down the post, CEO Sam Yagan told The Observer, it was just the "common sense thing to do."" "Furthermore, the data that OKCupid gathered from Match.com's public filings and press kit were not completely accurate, he said, which he realized once he saw the real data." snip "And even though the two sites are now playing for the same team, it'll be business as usual at OKCupid's Midtown office, he said. OKCupid will remain free and OKTrends will keep publishing the popular research it culls from its members. (Data from Match.com and its affiliated sites will not be included.)" So, rather than putting up a correction to the previous blog post that due to fresh data showing something different; they decided to take it down. I suppose either because Match.com either refuses to release the data, the blog post is confirmed to be true or they wanted to appease the new owners.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  For a company that's usually so good about publicity, it really seems like they fucked up here.

joelrunyon 16y ago

Still wondering why I should care...

maeon3 16y ago

UNDELETED! Google Cache copy (for when the Google Cache expires) http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...

GrandMasterBirt 16y ago

I love this article, and I always loved OkCupid for their statistical analysis and myth debunking. I am very saddened that they had to join their competitor. O well.

timothychung 16y ago

the original link is dead to me. Clicked text only version and it works. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2&hl=zh-TW&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuo...