I've been coding a dating app in my free time and there's a lot of really interesting problems in the dating space imo. I did a lot of user interviews, and one

I've been coding a dating app in my free time and there's a lot of really interesting problems in the dating space imo. I did a lot of user interviews, and one of the frustrations I heard over and over again (across genders) is that dating apps today are largely about creating an image for yourself in the form of a profile... so your success largely comes down to your physical appearance, your ability to take good photographs, and how you portray your personality and personal life. Which means that people who become successful have to learn how to game the system, and someone with a great personality may have a harder time in apps if they don't look a certain way. It's a bit like how engineers have to learn how to succeed at interviews, which can be a separate skill from their day-to-day job. I like what Lex has done - it's a queer dating app that's designed to look like those old personal ads in papers. There's no images, and you're limited to four posts in a month to encourage higher quality posts. One person told me that they've had way better success meeting people through their professional life or hobbies, because you get to know someone better by working on tasks or playing games together. She said that she wishes she could just play a game with a stranger and then have the option to chat with them after - there's an app or two I've seen in development that take a similar approach. Not sure how viable it is, but it's interesting. Ultimately I think that there's a lot of dating issues that can't be solved with technology (say, racism) but a well-designed app can influence behavior to mitigate some issues (e.g. bumble).