4 ms·

Match has turned all of its apps into tinder. That is, gambling-like "one more swipe" photo centric dating apps, where the artificial restriction of choice keep

Match has turned all of its apps into tinder. That is, gambling-like "one more swipe" photo centric dating apps, where the artificial restriction of choice keeps every person starved. Tinder is casual hookups, okcupid is leftist tinder for relationships, Hinge is politically moderate tinder for traditionalists, and so on. Each is a different marketing segment, but the same basic idea that gets men to pay to meet women.

opportune 4y ago
I would not say Hinge artificially restricts choice. You are limited in how many “likes” you can send each day, but it’s a different model where each like is actually a notification/puts you in someone’s “inbox”, so letting everybody like too much would make it too spammy to work. That model is also quite good because you don’t need to pay for women to notice you. Those 10 people you like will notice you anyway, unlike other apps where you could like 1000 profiles and barely be seen by any of them. I personally have found Hinge very effective compared to other apps without paying a cent. My like -> match -> date conversion rate was literally two orders of magnitude better than any other app.
- bjustin 4y ago
  I also found Hinge to have a much higher hit rate of conversations-per-profile-seen, and dates, than the other apps.
- slovette 4y ago
  Match rates where true for me as well in comparison to other apps. However, what I found interesting is that I’d routinely run out of matches on my last month of being “premium”. As soon as the paid gig was up, all of a sudden, profiles of potential matches in my area that I had never seen prior are numerous. BUT.. to like or match, I have to resubscribe… hmm… Another obvious manipulation by Hinge (and the other apps) is I’m almost 100% positive they artificially limit who they show you by stacking the deck with a bunch of profiles of women they know haven’t logged into the service in awhile. Basically priming the pump with “possibility” to keep you engaged; diluting the active profiles and spreading any likely match possibilities out over time. It’s things like these two realizations that made me decide these apps are not in existence to help you find a match. They’re incentive is the same as Facebook, engagement. You matching means you no longer using the app and that’s bad for business.
vintermann 4y ago
Sounds like the same trend we se in other social media, which is that as soon as there's something new which against the odds has broken through, everyone rushes to copy it - the reason both YouTube and Facebook are pushing shorts so aggressively now.
ravenstine 4y ago
> okcupid is leftist tinder for relationships LOL Some people are going to take this the wrong way, but I've never read a more true statement. I'm a pretty liberal person (folks think I'm conservative because I think communism stinks), but my experience with OkCupid many years ago was that most of its users were self-proclaimed cultural Marxists or feminists with a bone to pick. My digital head was decapitated several times by women there just for introducing myself to them. I'd even been lectured a handful of times about how I was "misogynist" for the age range I specified on my profile included women 5 years younger than I was, which wasn't even low enough to include women of college age. The day I saw an advertisement for OkCupid that actually used the initialism "DTF" was when I knew for sure I would never be returning to them ever again. It would surprise me if they still had any meaningful userbase since it was pretty much dead in the LA area the last time I used it. > but the same basic idea that gets men to pay to meet women. In which case men should just go to Seeking Arrangement.
- dTal 4y ago
  >self-proclaimed cultural Marxists (X) Doubt "The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture" [0] No one "self proclaims" that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...
virtualritz 4y ago
> okcupid is leftist tinder for relationships Your experience may have location bias? I.e. where did you use OKC? I used it in Europe (2010--2011, mostly Germany and Italy) and Asia (2011-2013, Hong Kong) and Europe again (2014--now mostly Berlin & Hamburg) and my experiences were/are very different. People are from the full political spectrum. Very right people are the outlier though, admittedly. In Berlin there is a leftist bias but this is pretty newish (wasn't like this at all, when I started using OKC again in Europe in 2014). Edit: spelling

opportune 4y ago

I would not say Hinge artificially restricts choice. You are limited in how many “likes” you can send each day, but it’s a different model where each like is actually a notification/puts you in someone’s “inbox”, so letting everybody like too much would make it too spammy to work. That model is also quite good because you don’t need to pay for women to notice you. Those 10 people you like will notice you anyway, unlike other apps where you could like 1000 profiles and barely be seen by any of them. I personally have found Hinge very effective compared to other apps without paying a cent. My like -> match -> date conversion rate was literally two orders of magnitude better than any other app.

bjustin 4y ago
I also found Hinge to have a much higher hit rate of conversations-per-profile-seen, and dates, than the other apps.
slovette 4y ago
Match rates where true for me as well in comparison to other apps. However, what I found interesting is that I’d routinely run out of matches on my last month of being “premium”. As soon as the paid gig was up, all of a sudden, profiles of potential matches in my area that I had never seen prior are numerous. BUT.. to like or match, I have to resubscribe… hmm… Another obvious manipulation by Hinge (and the other apps) is I’m almost 100% positive they artificially limit who they show you by stacking the deck with a bunch of profiles of women they know haven’t logged into the service in awhile. Basically priming the pump with “possibility” to keep you engaged; diluting the active profiles and spreading any likely match possibilities out over time. It’s things like these two realizations that made me decide these apps are not in existence to help you find a match. They’re incentive is the same as Facebook, engagement. You matching means you no longer using the app and that’s bad for business.

vintermann 4y ago

Sounds like the same trend we se in other social media, which is that as soon as there's something new which against the odds has broken through, everyone rushes to copy it - the reason both YouTube and Facebook are pushing shorts so aggressively now.

ravenstine 4y ago

> okcupid is leftist tinder for relationships LOL Some people are going to take this the wrong way, but I've never read a more true statement. I'm a pretty liberal person (folks think I'm conservative because I think communism stinks), but my experience with OkCupid many years ago was that most of its users were self-proclaimed cultural Marxists or feminists with a bone to pick. My digital head was decapitated several times by women there just for introducing myself to them. I'd even been lectured a handful of times about how I was "misogynist" for the age range I specified on my profile included women 5 years younger than I was, which wasn't even low enough to include women of college age. The day I saw an advertisement for OkCupid that actually used the initialism "DTF" was when I knew for sure I would never be returning to them ever again. It would surprise me if they still had any meaningful userbase since it was pretty much dead in the LA area the last time I used it. > but the same basic idea that gets men to pay to meet women. In which case men should just go to Seeking Arrangement.

dTal 4y ago
>self-proclaimed cultural Marxists (X) Doubt "The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture" [0] No one "self proclaims" that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...

virtualritz 4y ago

> okcupid is leftist tinder for relationships Your experience may have location bias? I.e. where did you use OKC? I used it in Europe (2010--2011, mostly Germany and Italy) and Asia (2011-2013, Hong Kong) and Europe again (2014--now mostly Berlin & Hamburg) and my experiences were/are very different. People are from the full political spectrum. Very right people are the outlier though, admittedly. In Berlin there is a leftist bias but this is pretty newish (wasn't like this at all, when I started using OKC again in Europe in 2014). Edit: spelling