5 ms·

You, as a user of a dating app, are forever in a Nash Equilibrium with the dating app. When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. Therefor

by teeray 4y ago

You, as a user of a dating app, are forever in a Nash Equilibrium with the dating app. When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. Therefore, everything the app does to help you find that person works directly against their own goals (user growth, “engagement”. subscriptions).

travisporter 4y ago
Isn’t hinge addressing this
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  How are they doing it? Is it a poly app?
  - sillysaurusx 4y ago
    Nah, that’s Open.
- changoplatanero 4y ago
  can you explain more?
  - lake_vincent 4y ago
    Their motto is that their app is "meant to be deleted." They don't want to you stay on it, but they DO want you to tell all your single friends about it. Hinge's free tier is absolutely excellent and I have gotten multiple dates, as well as a girlfriend, without paying a cent. What's the catch, you may ask? As with most dating apps, let's just say that if you don't have a "highly competitive" profile, you will struggle if you don't pay for high-volume swiping.
    - Bakary 4y ago
      AFAIK from past discussions on here, the Hinge model is to make it harder with people with a low Elo on the app, and to provide them with more fine-grained options to pay to boost their chances ("roses" etc.) If you have a higher than average Elo, it will seem like having a free lunch. But that's because it's fueled by someone else's desperation at being caught in low Elo feedback loop early. You then have high Elos who cycle through the app quickly and don't pay, and the rest who cycle more slowly and are more likely to pay during their time there.
      - lake_vincent 4y ago
        Yeah, that sounds about right. I am actually single again (ha...), so the quality of the match is not gonna be as deep as a compatability based algo like OKC - Hinge profiles are relatively shallow, and hard to get right. It's much better for getting laid, not finding the love of your life. I don't plan on returning to any apps, because the whole experience feels dehumanizing, and I'm looking for something enduring now.
      - ratww 4y ago
        Isn't that exactly how Tinder also works, or at least used to work? I remember Tinder being heavily criticised for using Elo ranking.
        Bakary 4y ago
        We'd have to know the algorithm but it's all about the details of how that Elo is implemented, which traits are selected for in which apps, the monetization options etc.
      - soylentcola 4y ago
        I assume "Elo" is their hotness credit score system? I doubt I had a high one - kinda nerdy looking mid 40's dude, not particularly tall or athletic-looking, not particularly wealthy, no constant stream of matches, etc. I found the people in the "rose list" to just look like Instagram profiles with fairly vanilla profiles and standard TV/socmed good looks, whereas I usually fit better with other nerdy weirdos of average/decent looks. It's oversimplification, but that's about as good as I can get as a generalization. I still spent some weekends taking care of things at home and plenty of others with dates over the course of several months. I met a few lovely people who I'd totally say hi and chat with if I ran into them out and about today. I went out a few times with one or two that eventually fizzled. And I went out with one that I wouldn't have met otherwise (lives 45min away) and am still involved with a year later. I never paid for it (Hinge) and just treated it as a way to "surface" potentially interesting people to say hi to, chat with, and potentially date. For all the flaws, it's a more effective way to do this than counting solely on meeting people in your physical sphere.
- fastball 4y ago
  Seeing as how Hinge is also owned by the Match Group... probably not.
- ratww 4y ago
  Is it? To a complete outsider it feels as if Hinge is just becoming the new Tinder. Anecdotal of course (mostly from women friends), but partly supported by the growth of Hinge lately. People looking for relationships don't want to be matched with people only looking for hookups, and people looking for hookups don't want to part of a club that accepts them. Apps have the incentive to make money so they don't really do anything.
  - soared 4y ago
    From my friend circle hinge is completely different than tinder/etc and built for the purpose of finding long term matches. Most of my friends, along with myself, found their SO on hinge.
VBprogrammer 4y ago
I wonder if there is an alternative business model which would put users and the business on the same side. Could you put a lien against someone's marriage, such that in order to marry someone you meet on HappyDating.com you had to pay the outstanding debt? Anything less extreme?
- dehrmann 4y ago
  > I wonder if there is an alternative business model which would put users and the business on the same side. Hookup apps. Apps for non-monogamous people. You're looking for repeat customers. The only other way is paying when the couple gets into something long-term, but the fee would probably be higher than people want.
  - actionablefiber 4y ago
    Definitely hookups, but also not just hookups; I've found gay Tinder to be a really great way to meet people in my area from all walks of life and parts of town who have overlapping interests with me. I definitely agree that if your service depends on a subscription model and is explicitly aimed at people whose goal begins and ends with finding a life partner and deleting their account, then there is really no easy way to reconcile this.
  - VBprogrammer 4y ago
    Heterosexual non-monogamy is difficult for those people who aren't, let's say, conventionally attractive. The people I knew who could pull it off didn't really need an app!
    - alfnor 4y ago
      But apps increase their options, which puts the rest of us at a disadvantage.
- tromp 4y ago
  A subscription that converts to free membership after n years.
cupofpython 4y ago
only if they are the only dating app around. if not, then having a reputation for actually matching people well will bring more people to the app and generate more revenue than you would ever get from a small amount of desperate customers. Of course, matching people well is hard - so any model that isnt good at that will be better off trying to game their customers and brute force their marketing. (for example, if their entire model is based on superficial values like how well they can take a photo of themselves - it may not be good at actually matching people)
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  > Of course, matching people well is hard I thought OKCupid did a great job. The second person I had a conversation with ended up becoming my wife. I really liked how OKCupid had a seemingly never-ending set of personality questions. You could answer none of them, or you could answer 100 of them, and the more you answered, the more confidence it had in its matching. You would even flag the importance of each question, so you can tell it if something is an absolute deal-breaker (like your desire to have kids or stay child-free), or if something is a mild preference, like hair color. > (for example, if their entire model is based on superficial values like how well they can take a photo of themselves - it may not be good at actually matching people) IMO, Tinder ruined online dating. AFAIK, it makes zero attempt at actually matching people based on any metrics other than location and age. Actually, I take that back. Tinder didn't ruin online dating, shitty men that send unsolicited dick pics or go ape-shit when they get rejected did.
  - lukevp 4y ago
    Early OKCupid was amazing, their matching algorithm was spot on. I had a similar experience, and matched with my wife there after only a handful of other dates. The craziest part- she had made a profile, and we’d matched, but she wasn’t ready to date at the time and deleted her profile. A couple months later she remade it and we matched again! Neither of us realized we were the same people until after we had started dating and talked about previous messages we’d sent out. So their matching was definitely legitimate. We were a 92% match on OKCupid. It’s 11 years later and we’re still happy as 2 clams! OKCupid was the most meaningful website in my entire life, because it helped me find my lifelong partner, and I never paid them a cent.
golergka 4y ago
> When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. That's true only for users who have this goal.
yellow_lead 4y ago
Not if you're poly or something (just saying)
wzdd 4y ago
> works directly against their own goals (user growth, “engagement”. subscriptions). ... success stories, marriages per day due to the app (as per Match.com's advertising material in the article), word of mouth advertisement for the app to your friends...? Again, from the article, even in 2011 match.com was proudly reporting that its active user base changed out every six months. So the "dating apps don't want you to find someone perfect" narrative strikes me as a little simplistic. On the other hand, plenty of people use dating apps like Bumble and Tinder to find hook-ups, not the love of their life. These people will keep coming back to the app as a result of being frequently successful.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > So the "dating apps don't want you to find someone perfect" narrative strikes me as a little simplistic. Tobacco companies are spending serious money to stop kids from smoking, because they really care about their health.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > So the "dating apps don't want you to find someone perfect" narrative strikes me as a little simplistic. Read the article again; their explanation is that after 6 months, people either butt out, or pair-off and butt out.
rglullis 4y ago
Tinder and OkCupid are not in the "I want to find a partner for life" demographic, they are in the "we give you a constant stream of hookup connections" business.
- consp 4y ago
  Surprisingly I thought the same though there is more than one person I know who is married to his Tinder date. Somehow it works out apperantly (this is still anecdotal).
  - rglullis 4y ago
    Don't tell anyone, I also met my wife on Tinder. But we are the exception, not the rule.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  Isn’t it the same company now
  - rglullis 4y ago
    You know how the big car companies have different brands (VW and Porsche, Ford and Jaguar, Toyota and Lexus), each for a specific market segment? Same thing.
skizm 4y ago
When you find the love of your life you move from user to free marketing. People constantly talk about how they met, early dates, etc. New users always enter the dating market, either by just younger people getting older or breakups, divorce, erc. So it seems like it wouldn't be in the best long term interest to keep users in the dopamine loop.
- teeray 4y ago
  Sounds good in theory, but consider two dating apps: one with hockey stick user growth and high retention, and another with stagnant growth but high user churn. Which one would get the VC dollars? The story you tell would present itself in metrics as the latter app (high churn).
  - btbuildem 4y ago
    This here is the crux of the problem: approaching everything with the "would someone think of the VCs" mindset. Can we for once build something good and useful, and leave the greedy gamblers out of it?
    - alfnor 4y ago
      No, we cannot, because this is capitalism.
badwolf 4y ago
This is why I had high expectations and hopes for Facebook Dating. They "have all the data" - and benefit from you being on the site, whether you get married and stop using dating, or not. Unfortunately, they made a pretty shitty 'dating' system and left it to rot.
afarrell 4y ago
I've long had an idea for an app that helped you be a better boyfriend/husband by helping you plan dates and find good ideas for dates in your city like museums, great restaurants, concerts, etc.
maerF0x0 4y ago
> When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. Therefore, everything the app does to help you find that person works directly against their own goals (user growth, “engagement”. subscriptions). I'm not sure this is a fair modeling of how an app must work -- think of other industries that have extremely long sales cycles like, say, a realtor. Realtors are incentivized to match you to a home in such a manner that you might recommend them to others (and leave positive reviews), perhaps even use them again on the buy/sell side later on if their career is long. Mind you Realtor is closest to professional match maker, but there's no reason an app couldnt take a middle ground between tinder and a highly involved match making service.
thehappypm 4y ago
McDonalds works against its interests by making its customers less hungry too.
- kleene_op 4y ago
  I might be wrong, but people don't generally consume their date :o)

by teeray 4y ago

travisporter 4y ago

Isn’t hinge addressing this

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 4y ago
How are they doing it? Is it a poly app?
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Nah, that’s Open.
changoplatanero 4y ago
can you explain more?
- lake_vincent 4y ago
  Their motto is that their app is "meant to be deleted." They don't want to you stay on it, but they DO want you to tell all your single friends about it. Hinge's free tier is absolutely excellent and I have gotten multiple dates, as well as a girlfriend, without paying a cent. What's the catch, you may ask? As with most dating apps, let's just say that if you don't have a "highly competitive" profile, you will struggle if you don't pay for high-volume swiping.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    AFAIK from past discussions on here, the Hinge model is to make it harder with people with a low Elo on the app, and to provide them with more fine-grained options to pay to boost their chances ("roses" etc.) If you have a higher than average Elo, it will seem like having a free lunch. But that's because it's fueled by someone else's desperation at being caught in low Elo feedback loop early. You then have high Elos who cycle through the app quickly and don't pay, and the rest who cycle more slowly and are more likely to pay during their time there.
    - lake_vincent 4y ago
      Yeah, that sounds about right. I am actually single again (ha...), so the quality of the match is not gonna be as deep as a compatability based algo like OKC - Hinge profiles are relatively shallow, and hard to get right. It's much better for getting laid, not finding the love of your life. I don't plan on returning to any apps, because the whole experience feels dehumanizing, and I'm looking for something enduring now.
    - ratww 4y ago
      Isn't that exactly how Tinder also works, or at least used to work? I remember Tinder being heavily criticised for using Elo ranking.
      - Bakary 4y ago
        We'd have to know the algorithm but it's all about the details of how that Elo is implemented, which traits are selected for in which apps, the monetization options etc.
    - soylentcola 4y ago
      I assume "Elo" is their hotness credit score system? I doubt I had a high one - kinda nerdy looking mid 40's dude, not particularly tall or athletic-looking, not particularly wealthy, no constant stream of matches, etc. I found the people in the "rose list" to just look like Instagram profiles with fairly vanilla profiles and standard TV/socmed good looks, whereas I usually fit better with other nerdy weirdos of average/decent looks. It's oversimplification, but that's about as good as I can get as a generalization. I still spent some weekends taking care of things at home and plenty of others with dates over the course of several months. I met a few lovely people who I'd totally say hi and chat with if I ran into them out and about today. I went out a few times with one or two that eventually fizzled. And I went out with one that I wouldn't have met otherwise (lives 45min away) and am still involved with a year later. I never paid for it (Hinge) and just treated it as a way to "surface" potentially interesting people to say hi to, chat with, and potentially date. For all the flaws, it's a more effective way to do this than counting solely on meeting people in your physical sphere.
fastball 4y ago
Seeing as how Hinge is also owned by the Match Group... probably not.
ratww 4y ago
Is it? To a complete outsider it feels as if Hinge is just becoming the new Tinder. Anecdotal of course (mostly from women friends), but partly supported by the growth of Hinge lately. People looking for relationships don't want to be matched with people only looking for hookups, and people looking for hookups don't want to part of a club that accepts them. Apps have the incentive to make money so they don't really do anything.
- soared 4y ago
  From my friend circle hinge is completely different than tinder/etc and built for the purpose of finding long term matches. Most of my friends, along with myself, found their SO on hinge.

VBprogrammer 4y ago

I wonder if there is an alternative business model which would put users and the business on the same side. Could you put a lien against someone's marriage, such that in order to marry someone you meet on HappyDating.com you had to pay the outstanding debt? Anything less extreme?

dehrmann 4y ago
> I wonder if there is an alternative business model which would put users and the business on the same side. Hookup apps. Apps for non-monogamous people. You're looking for repeat customers. The only other way is paying when the couple gets into something long-term, but the fee would probably be higher than people want.
- actionablefiber 4y ago
  Definitely hookups, but also not just hookups; I've found gay Tinder to be a really great way to meet people in my area from all walks of life and parts of town who have overlapping interests with me. I definitely agree that if your service depends on a subscription model and is explicitly aimed at people whose goal begins and ends with finding a life partner and deleting their account, then there is really no easy way to reconcile this.
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  Heterosexual non-monogamy is difficult for those people who aren't, let's say, conventionally attractive. The people I knew who could pull it off didn't really need an app!
  - alfnor 4y ago
    But apps increase their options, which puts the rest of us at a disadvantage.
tromp 4y ago
A subscription that converts to free membership after n years.

cupofpython 4y ago

only if they are the only dating app around. if not, then having a reputation for actually matching people well will bring more people to the app and generate more revenue than you would ever get from a small amount of desperate customers. Of course, matching people well is hard - so any model that isnt good at that will be better off trying to game their customers and brute force their marketing. (for example, if their entire model is based on superficial values like how well they can take a photo of themselves - it may not be good at actually matching people)

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> Of course, matching people well is hard I thought OKCupid did a great job. The second person I had a conversation with ended up becoming my wife. I really liked how OKCupid had a seemingly never-ending set of personality questions. You could answer none of them, or you could answer 100 of them, and the more you answered, the more confidence it had in its matching. You would even flag the importance of each question, so you can tell it if something is an absolute deal-breaker (like your desire to have kids or stay child-free), or if something is a mild preference, like hair color. > (for example, if their entire model is based on superficial values like how well they can take a photo of themselves - it may not be good at actually matching people) IMO, Tinder ruined online dating. AFAIK, it makes zero attempt at actually matching people based on any metrics other than location and age. Actually, I take that back. Tinder didn't ruin online dating, shitty men that send unsolicited dick pics or go ape-shit when they get rejected did.
- lukevp 4y ago
  Early OKCupid was amazing, their matching algorithm was spot on. I had a similar experience, and matched with my wife there after only a handful of other dates. The craziest part- she had made a profile, and we’d matched, but she wasn’t ready to date at the time and deleted her profile. A couple months later she remade it and we matched again! Neither of us realized we were the same people until after we had started dating and talked about previous messages we’d sent out. So their matching was definitely legitimate. We were a 92% match on OKCupid. It’s 11 years later and we’re still happy as 2 clams! OKCupid was the most meaningful website in my entire life, because it helped me find my lifelong partner, and I never paid them a cent.

golergka 4y ago

> When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. That's true only for users who have this goal.

yellow_lead 4y ago

Not if you're poly or something (just saying)

wzdd 4y ago

> works directly against their own goals (user growth, “engagement”. subscriptions). ... success stories, marriages per day due to the app (as per Match.com's advertising material in the article), word of mouth advertisement for the app to your friends...? Again, from the article, even in 2011 match.com was proudly reporting that its active user base changed out every six months. So the "dating apps don't want you to find someone perfect" narrative strikes me as a little simplistic. On the other hand, plenty of people use dating apps like Bumble and Tinder to find hook-ups, not the love of their life. These people will keep coming back to the app as a result of being frequently successful.

luckylion 4y ago
> So the "dating apps don't want you to find someone perfect" narrative strikes me as a little simplistic. Tobacco companies are spending serious money to stop kids from smoking, because they really care about their health.
denton-scratch 4y ago
> So the "dating apps don't want you to find someone perfect" narrative strikes me as a little simplistic. Read the article again; their explanation is that after 6 months, people either butt out, or pair-off and butt out.

rglullis 4y ago

Tinder and OkCupid are not in the "I want to find a partner for life" demographic, they are in the "we give you a constant stream of hookup connections" business.

consp 4y ago
Surprisingly I thought the same though there is more than one person I know who is married to his Tinder date. Somehow it works out apperantly (this is still anecdotal).
- rglullis 4y ago
  Don't tell anyone, I also met my wife on Tinder. But we are the exception, not the rule.
rdtwo 4y ago
Isn’t it the same company now
- rglullis 4y ago
  You know how the big car companies have different brands (VW and Porsche, Ford and Jaguar, Toyota and Lexus), each for a specific market segment? Same thing.

skizm 4y ago

When you find the love of your life you move from user to free marketing. People constantly talk about how they met, early dates, etc. New users always enter the dating market, either by just younger people getting older or breakups, divorce, erc. So it seems like it wouldn't be in the best long term interest to keep users in the dopamine loop.

teeray 4y ago
Sounds good in theory, but consider two dating apps: one with hockey stick user growth and high retention, and another with stagnant growth but high user churn. Which one would get the VC dollars? The story you tell would present itself in metrics as the latter app (high churn).
- btbuildem 4y ago
  This here is the crux of the problem: approaching everything with the "would someone think of the VCs" mindset. Can we for once build something good and useful, and leave the greedy gamblers out of it?
  - alfnor 4y ago
    No, we cannot, because this is capitalism.

badwolf 4y ago

This is why I had high expectations and hopes for Facebook Dating. They "have all the data" - and benefit from you being on the site, whether you get married and stop using dating, or not. Unfortunately, they made a pretty shitty 'dating' system and left it to rot.

afarrell 4y ago

I've long had an idea for an app that helped you be a better boyfriend/husband by helping you plan dates and find good ideas for dates in your city like museums, great restaurants, concerts, etc.

maerF0x0 4y ago

> When you find the love of your life, you delete the app forever. Therefore, everything the app does to help you find that person works directly against their own goals (user growth, “engagement”. subscriptions). I'm not sure this is a fair modeling of how an app must work -- think of other industries that have extremely long sales cycles like, say, a realtor. Realtors are incentivized to match you to a home in such a manner that you might recommend them to others (and leave positive reviews), perhaps even use them again on the buy/sell side later on if their career is long. Mind you Realtor is closest to professional match maker, but there's no reason an app couldnt take a middle ground between tinder and a highly involved match making service.

thehappypm 4y ago

McDonalds works against its interests by making its customers less hungry too.

kleene_op 4y ago
I might be wrong, but people don't generally consume their date :o)