4 ms·

If that's true the person to figure out how to make dating apps work for average guys can make a lot of money...

by borissk 4y ago

Bakary 4y ago
That doesn't sound logically possible, and if it were it would not last long as average men get wind of it
- borissk 4y ago
  Why is it not possible? In a society where multi marriages are not allowed there's a woman for every man.
  - Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
    Most dating doesn't lead to permanent pairings, so the fact that there are roughly equal numbers of men and women isn't that relevant when people are free to date at different frequencies and durations.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    For that to work in practice implies a rigidly monogamous society where almost everyone participates in the same context, bonds for life and does so at an early stage of their lifecycle, as well as few mismatches between both relationship goals and pairing criteria. That's essentially the traditional non-polygamous agrarian civilization model if we ignore the fact that the 0.01% or so of nobles had multiple partners. On dating apps the dynamic is very different.
smt88 4y ago
I think lots of people have tried. I agree that among the pool of people on these apps, there are lots of matches that would work out among average-looking people. So why doesn't that happen? It's because a lot of attraction is based on things that photos and profiles can't convey. The medium of "digital app" is just very, very wrong for optimizing dating. I've seen research that the most efficient way to handle dating is in-person speed dating.
- globular-toast 4y ago
  > It's because a lot of attraction is based on things that photos and profiles can't convey. Especially for men. The worst thing is the imbalance. Compatibility in a long-term relationship is certainly based on factors other than looks for both sexes but, like it or not, all relationships start with basic attraction. Women's basic attraction comes from their looks in the vast majority of cases. But for most men, it has to come from somewhere else. Usually status, power, ability, humour etc. So it works absolutely fine for women, but is a complete non-starter for the average man. I'm not surprised speed-dating is more efficient. My experience with online dating is that even if I find a woman physically attractive I might not find her attractive in real life. We might simply not hit it off, or there can even be other factors like smell that are off-putting. Speed dating eliminates those immediately as well as allowing people to show off non-physical attractive qualities. I still don't think it's optimal for men, though. The best way is to get good at something and show it off in public. Like playing in a band, public speaking, leading and commanding respect of other men etc. That can make otherwise physically repulsive men attractive. There are countless examples.
Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
Dating apps end up mostly being used for casual dating and hookups. The closest thing to that for average or below average guys is prostitution, which of course has been around a while and much money was and is being made.
- borissk 4y ago
  IMHO most users of such site do hope to find a permanent partner.
vidarh 4y ago
Not convinced. There are obvious steps that'd be more "average guy" friendly, but would kill engagement and so revenue. E.g. slow down showing profiles when they have more than X pending matches. An ex told me she'd paid for Gold on Tinder once out of curiosity (lets you see how many have swiped right on you). Her pending matches were in the 4 digits. These profiles "soak up" a lot of the time and attention of people on these platforms without creating a real chance of matches for users who aren't super aggressively matching everyone. This again trains for a behaviour where men match a lot, and women can afford to be very selective. But reducing the displays of the most popular profiles so their pending matches queue is never very deep won't do anything good for revenue. Another option is to train models to predict likely matches, and sort displays accordingly, but that again won't do much for revenue, because it would mean average men would be more likely to be shown women closer to their attractiveness level which there is less competition for rather than women with 4 figure deep queues of waiting matches. Remember, most dating sites make money from making it hard enough to get a match that people pay for premium services to increase their chance. They have a built in incentive to exaggerate the possibilities while maintaining friction in actually meeting someone. It must be hard for you to find someone for most of them to do well. If you can convince people to pay for a less perversely incentivised model, maybe. E.g. a "pay per match" model maybe, if well protected against scammers. But suspect it'd be a very hard sell.
globular-toast 4y ago
Or just stick with the tried and tested way of convincing average guys you can make them more attractive without actually making them more attractive.

If that's true the person to figure out how to make dating apps work for average guys can make a lot of money...

Bakary 4y ago

That doesn't sound logically possible, and if it were it would not last long as average men get wind of it

borissk 4y ago
Why is it not possible? In a society where multi marriages are not allowed there's a woman for every man.
- Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago
  Most dating doesn't lead to permanent pairings, so the fact that there are roughly equal numbers of men and women isn't that relevant when people are free to date at different frequencies and durations.
- Bakary 4y ago
  For that to work in practice implies a rigidly monogamous society where almost everyone participates in the same context, bonds for life and does so at an early stage of their lifecycle, as well as few mismatches between both relationship goals and pairing criteria. That's essentially the traditional non-polygamous agrarian civilization model if we ignore the fact that the 0.01% or so of nobles had multiple partners. On dating apps the dynamic is very different.

smt88 4y ago

I think lots of people have tried. I agree that among the pool of people on these apps, there are lots of matches that would work out among average-looking people. So why doesn't that happen? It's because a lot of attraction is based on things that photos and profiles can't convey. The medium of "digital app" is just very, very wrong for optimizing dating. I've seen research that the most efficient way to handle dating is in-person speed dating.

globular-toast 4y ago
> It's because a lot of attraction is based on things that photos and profiles can't convey. Especially for men. The worst thing is the imbalance. Compatibility in a long-term relationship is certainly based on factors other than looks for both sexes but, like it or not, all relationships start with basic attraction. Women's basic attraction comes from their looks in the vast majority of cases. But for most men, it has to come from somewhere else. Usually status, power, ability, humour etc. So it works absolutely fine for women, but is a complete non-starter for the average man. I'm not surprised speed-dating is more efficient. My experience with online dating is that even if I find a woman physically attractive I might not find her attractive in real life. We might simply not hit it off, or there can even be other factors like smell that are off-putting. Speed dating eliminates those immediately as well as allowing people to show off non-physical attractive qualities. I still don't think it's optimal for men, though. The best way is to get good at something and show it off in public. Like playing in a band, public speaking, leading and commanding respect of other men etc. That can make otherwise physically repulsive men attractive. There are countless examples.

Rufbdbskrufb473 4y ago

Dating apps end up mostly being used for casual dating and hookups. The closest thing to that for average or below average guys is prostitution, which of course has been around a while and much money was and is being made.

borissk 4y ago
IMHO most users of such site do hope to find a permanent partner.

vidarh 4y ago

Not convinced. There are obvious steps that'd be more "average guy" friendly, but would kill engagement and so revenue. E.g. slow down showing profiles when they have more than X pending matches. An ex told me she'd paid for Gold on Tinder once out of curiosity (lets you see how many have swiped right on you). Her pending matches were in the 4 digits. These profiles "soak up" a lot of the time and attention of people on these platforms without creating a real chance of matches for users who aren't super aggressively matching everyone. This again trains for a behaviour where men match a lot, and women can afford to be very selective. But reducing the displays of the most popular profiles so their pending matches queue is never very deep won't do anything good for revenue. Another option is to train models to predict likely matches, and sort displays accordingly, but that again won't do much for revenue, because it would mean average men would be more likely to be shown women closer to their attractiveness level which there is less competition for rather than women with 4 figure deep queues of waiting matches. Remember, most dating sites make money from making it hard enough to get a match that people pay for premium services to increase their chance. They have a built in incentive to exaggerate the possibilities while maintaining friction in actually meeting someone. It must be hard for you to find someone for most of them to do well. If you can convince people to pay for a less perversely incentivised model, maybe. E.g. a "pay per match" model maybe, if well protected against scammers. But suspect it'd be a very hard sell.

globular-toast 4y ago

Or just stick with the tried and tested way of convincing average guys you can make them more attractive without actually making them more attractive.