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Okay, assuming your information is correct (women are a hot commodity on dating apps and get lots of attention, and conversely men have a hard time getting any

Okay, assuming your information is correct (women are a hot commodity on dating apps and get lots of attention, and conversely men have a hard time getting any attention), if you put out a hetero-only dating app with a 1:1 men:women ratio, why would women choose to use it, when on Tinder they would have men clamoring over them?

crooked-v 7y ago
There could well be an untapped market of women who aren't interested in the atmosphere that comes with the unbalanced gender ratio, even if it means being at a personal disadvantage in the process.
- coralreef 7y ago
  Considering that we can't come up with a good reason or show how this alternate app is better/more useful, I'm going to cast some doubt that there is an untapped market of women who want to give up value for some intangible factor.
vsareto 7y ago
I'm actually on board with the idea of boutique dating apps that limit population and interactions in this way. I would try one that gave discounts and date ideas ("-$5.00 discount at this particular restaurant, oh, and there's 4 tables left for tonight, reserve a table for your date now through our app"). If you want to get creepy, do analyses of where people might want to go based on preferences or chat content and give discounts/suggestions for those categories. Other broad filters could be "find some place with lots of people". The less intrusive version is just giving a map of places nearby that have discounts available. Make it convenient to share map and website pointers within the app, so people aren't tabbing over to Google maps to look up the place. For joining, I'd probably keep it application only or by referral. Egregious complaints and police reports get you thrown right out. Balancing how much identity verification against a creepy factor would be difficult. These kinds of things are a lot more palatable the more of them that there are. There can be other flavors of boutique apps, and you just shop around and apply to ones you like. Did you already go through all 500 potential matches on this 1k user app? Just download another one.
- smogcutter 7y ago
  Not sure “let’s go to this restaurant, I’ve got a coupon!” is a great look for a first date.
  - jedieaston 7y ago
    The app would offer the coupon to both simultaneously, so it’s a incentive to actually meet (fancy dinner for 2 for $30? Heck I’ll give you a shot)
- anthonypasq 7y ago
  There already are plenty of exclusive dating apps. You just arent cool enough to have been invited to one yet.
  - why_only_15 7y ago
    Clearly 99% of the population isn't either... Why make this an app or a startup or something if you're only going to invite 500 people? Why not just play matchmaker yourself in whatever city?
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
Even with a 1:1 ratio, 20% of the men would attract 80% of the women. In any dating pool, online or otherwise, the math is just generally bad for the vast majority of men attempting to attract a partner. See: https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-the-dating-economy/ https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-t...
- naveen99 7y ago
  I am skeptical of this much pessimism from the male point of. view. In the op’s post, there is a graph showing women peaking at 60% marriage rate in their 30’s, where as men leave them behind in the 40’s and 50’s. So a good 40% of women aren’t getting their pick of even the bottom 80% of men. i think it’s more like the top 60% of men and women compete for each other and are largely successfully. The bottom 40% of each hold out for as long as they can for the top 60%, and some of them finally succeed (mostly men with accumulated power in middle age). Also there are pressure release valves. Some people settle for a sexless marriage and simply get sex via prostitution. Men can sometimes find women from poorer countries. Finally I think what should happen is, make a #singleAndLooking hashtag on twitter and set it on when you are in the market. Let twitter make the hashtag searchable and filterable by city.
  - toohotatopic 7y ago
    How do you explain the rise of men being married? Is it men dying earlier than women or is it older men being able to marry a younger woman? In the latter case, men are at a disadvantage in the market because some men will take two or more women off the market.
    - naveen99 7y ago
      More financial stability with age. They only marry one woman at a time so I don’t understand your last concern.
philwelch 7y ago
Easy: the dating app pre-screens the men.
- edude03 7y ago
  I hate the implication that only men are bad actors here though.
  - arp242 7y ago
    Yeah, exactly. I've had a few experiences with women who misrepresented various things and were clearly not acting in good faith.
  - philwelch 7y ago
    I’m not saying they are, I’m saying they’re surplus.
toohotatopic 7y ago
Not only that. How does he select the men who are allowed to use the app?
- philwelch 7y ago
  If the app does a good enough job selecting the men, that screening process delivers value to the women.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    What does "good enough" even mean in this case?
    - philwelch 7y ago
      Filtering out the same men the women themselves would choose to filter out.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        But women don’t filter out the same people.
zweep 7y ago
The wildly unbalanced gender ratio makes men frustrated, which causes them to invest very little in reaching out to women so that they can reach out to dozens/hundreds/thousands, which makes an experience for women of thousands of dick pics/"hey"/etc, along with earnest high-investment outreach from men who are too ugly/poor/short/whatever to capture their interest. If there was a system for people in the 25th to 75th percentiles of desirability to have a dating market where the men were only allowed to contact 3 women per month, I think it would be very popular among women.
- tpetry 7y ago
  Theres a dating app kind of like the idea you are proposing: Once. You get one (!) suggestion per day and you can decide whether to like or dislike. The basic idea is quality over quantity. But as such an app is not good at guessing what you like, you mosten often just press the dislike button.
  - keenmaster 7y ago
    The chance that you'd want to date a given randomly selected person, or even an algo-selected person, is small. The "Once" app sounds like navigating deep space in hope of one day reaching a habitable planet.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      If you don't expect 30 matches a month to include a reasonable flow of date-worthy people, I think you've encountered exactly the problem the app is trying to solve. Your standards have been skewed unreasonably high by the constant availability of one more match, and some of the people you're not willing to date would make you perfectly happy if you did.
- fenwick67 7y ago
  I'm skeptical that an atmosphere where men generally get more attention will make them put more effort forward.

crooked-v 7y ago

There could well be an untapped market of women who aren't interested in the atmosphere that comes with the unbalanced gender ratio, even if it means being at a personal disadvantage in the process.

coralreef 7y ago
Considering that we can't come up with a good reason or show how this alternate app is better/more useful, I'm going to cast some doubt that there is an untapped market of women who want to give up value for some intangible factor.

vsareto 7y ago

I'm actually on board with the idea of boutique dating apps that limit population and interactions in this way. I would try one that gave discounts and date ideas ("-$5.00 discount at this particular restaurant, oh, and there's 4 tables left for tonight, reserve a table for your date now through our app"). If you want to get creepy, do analyses of where people might want to go based on preferences or chat content and give discounts/suggestions for those categories. Other broad filters could be "find some place with lots of people". The less intrusive version is just giving a map of places nearby that have discounts available. Make it convenient to share map and website pointers within the app, so people aren't tabbing over to Google maps to look up the place. For joining, I'd probably keep it application only or by referral. Egregious complaints and police reports get you thrown right out. Balancing how much identity verification against a creepy factor would be difficult. These kinds of things are a lot more palatable the more of them that there are. There can be other flavors of boutique apps, and you just shop around and apply to ones you like. Did you already go through all 500 potential matches on this 1k user app? Just download another one.

smogcutter 7y ago
Not sure “let’s go to this restaurant, I’ve got a coupon!” is a great look for a first date.
- jedieaston 7y ago
  The app would offer the coupon to both simultaneously, so it’s a incentive to actually meet (fancy dinner for 2 for $30? Heck I’ll give you a shot)
anthonypasq 7y ago
There already are plenty of exclusive dating apps. You just arent cool enough to have been invited to one yet.
- why_only_15 7y ago
  Clearly 99% of the population isn't either... Why make this an app or a startup or something if you're only going to invite 500 people? Why not just play matchmaker yourself in whatever city?

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

Even with a 1:1 ratio, 20% of the men would attract 80% of the women. In any dating pool, online or otherwise, the math is just generally bad for the vast majority of men attempting to attract a partner. See: https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-the-dating-economy/ https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-t...

naveen99 7y ago
I am skeptical of this much pessimism from the male point of. view. In the op’s post, there is a graph showing women peaking at 60% marriage rate in their 30’s, where as men leave them behind in the 40’s and 50’s. So a good 40% of women aren’t getting their pick of even the bottom 80% of men. i think it’s more like the top 60% of men and women compete for each other and are largely successfully. The bottom 40% of each hold out for as long as they can for the top 60%, and some of them finally succeed (mostly men with accumulated power in middle age). Also there are pressure release valves. Some people settle for a sexless marriage and simply get sex via prostitution. Men can sometimes find women from poorer countries. Finally I think what should happen is, make a #singleAndLooking hashtag on twitter and set it on when you are in the market. Let twitter make the hashtag searchable and filterable by city.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  How do you explain the rise of men being married? Is it men dying earlier than women or is it older men being able to marry a younger woman? In the latter case, men are at a disadvantage in the market because some men will take two or more women off the market.
  - naveen99 7y ago
    More financial stability with age. They only marry one woman at a time so I don’t understand your last concern.

philwelch 7y ago

Easy: the dating app pre-screens the men.

edude03 7y ago
I hate the implication that only men are bad actors here though.
- arp242 7y ago
  Yeah, exactly. I've had a few experiences with women who misrepresented various things and were clearly not acting in good faith.
- philwelch 7y ago
  I’m not saying they are, I’m saying they’re surplus.

toohotatopic 7y ago

Not only that. How does he select the men who are allowed to use the app?

philwelch 7y ago
If the app does a good enough job selecting the men, that screening process delivers value to the women.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  What does "good enough" even mean in this case?
  - philwelch 7y ago
    Filtering out the same men the women themselves would choose to filter out.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      But women don’t filter out the same people.

zweep 7y ago

The wildly unbalanced gender ratio makes men frustrated, which causes them to invest very little in reaching out to women so that they can reach out to dozens/hundreds/thousands, which makes an experience for women of thousands of dick pics/"hey"/etc, along with earnest high-investment outreach from men who are too ugly/poor/short/whatever to capture their interest. If there was a system for people in the 25th to 75th percentiles of desirability to have a dating market where the men were only allowed to contact 3 women per month, I think it would be very popular among women.

tpetry 7y ago
Theres a dating app kind of like the idea you are proposing: Once. You get one (!) suggestion per day and you can decide whether to like or dislike. The basic idea is quality over quantity. But as such an app is not good at guessing what you like, you mosten often just press the dislike button.
- keenmaster 7y ago
  The chance that you'd want to date a given randomly selected person, or even an algo-selected person, is small. The "Once" app sounds like navigating deep space in hope of one day reaching a habitable planet.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    If you don't expect 30 matches a month to include a reasonable flow of date-worthy people, I think you've encountered exactly the problem the app is trying to solve. Your standards have been skewed unreasonably high by the constant availability of one more match, and some of the people you're not willing to date would make you perfectly happy if you did.
fenwick67 7y ago
I'm skeptical that an atmosphere where men generally get more attention will make them put more effort forward.