8 ms·

If it were possible for a dating site to consistently make great matches, they wouldn't bother taint their results. Dominating the dating site market is a money

If it were possible for a dating site to consistently make great matches, they wouldn't bother taint their results. Dominating the dating site market is a money printing machine, even if you're continually having to find new customers, since that's how dating sites currently function. I interned at a dating site a while ago and there's no need to taint anything. People are far too complicated to predict beyond who will send a message to who. Also, the problem is adversarial (IE, people misrepresent themselves as the person they want to be as opposed to the person they are), so trying to find the signal is a continuous game of cat and mouse.

smnrchrds 4y ago
> Dominating the dating site market is a money printing machine Not if you already have almost the whole market to yourself. > Match Group ... owns and operates the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFish, UPWARD, Ship, and OurTime, totalling over 45 global dating companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group
- red_trumpet 4y ago
  I fail to see how this would not make it a money printing machine?
  - Smar 4y ago
    It is already, regardless of quality of their product?
  - smnrchrds 4y ago
    "If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful." - Steve Jobs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4
    - red_trumpet 4y ago
      I don't believe that quote to be true if we suppose "success = printing money". And if we don't suppose that, I do not see relevance of that quote.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Most of those companies were acquisitions for the match group, so basically build a great dating site and match group will pay you a barrel of money to buy your money printing machine.
  - codr7 4y ago
    I once worked for a guy who supposedly was involved in the creation of the original match site, money was the only language he spoke.
- cheriot 4y ago
  Bumble being the largest one in the US that they don't own (only Tinder is larger). https://infogram.com/us-dating-app-marketshare-1h8n6m3konzmz4x https://infogram.com/us-dating-app-marketshare-1h8n6m3konzmz... Intuitively, the largest dating app has a moat because people will open the app that has the people they want to date. Nevertheless, Match has had to continue acquiring competitors in order to stay in first place. So maybe that moat isn't so defensible?
  - Our_Benefactors 4y ago
    Dating apps seem more prone to the “eternal September” effect than other forms of social media. In practice, this looks like less quality messages being sent, more fake/catfish users, and monetization where it didn’t exist previously.
epicureanideal 4y ago
It’s not possible for them to make great matches in any significant quantity, because our society has become incapable of making good long term matches at all due to changes in morals, expectations, etc. And many individuals, probably a clear majority at this point, are not capable of being psychologically healthy relationship partners. A steady stream of top businessmen, actors, sportsmen etc. are being divorced by their wives. If these people can’t maintain a marriage, how much more difficult is it for most people?
- idopmstuff 4y ago
  Why would that group of people have an easier time maintaining a marriage than "average" people?
  - cocoa19 4y ago
    Right, I don't have any proof, but I think it would be the other way around. Top execs are often married to their jobs with less time for family. Actors are exposed often to very liberal and beautiful people (affairs are common). And people on the lower economic rungs are more incentivized to stay together to spend less money.
    - epicureanideal 4y ago
      > And people on the lower economic rungs are more incentivized to stay together to spend less money. The research actually shows that the upper end of the income distribution is more likely to 1) marry and 2) remain married. The lower and middle classes have been most disrupted by social change in the last 50 years.
      - idopmstuff 4y ago
        Probably depends exactly where you draw the line, though - the A-list rich and famous types might well have greater rates of divorce, but there are few enough of them to bring down the average of the top 10% of earners or what have you.
scythe 4y ago
>they wouldn't bother taint their results. Results are tainted by default. The simplest dating app is a random number generator attached to a list of user IDs. This probably performs badly. (But who knows? Maybe build it and see what happens!) The question is simply whether there is really a deliberate, focused effort to identify who gets into long-term relationships and to replicate the conditions that lead to such relationships. If dating sites were actually trying to help their customers, they would do this; someone would have worked on it; there would be an internal lore about what was learned from these attempts. The absence of any of this shows that it just isn't a priority, and that's enough. >Dominating the dating site market is a money printing machine One problem with modern dating is that people don't have a potential partner's reputation to go on as much as they used to. Relationships formed "through friends" have declined significantly, in tandem with a decline in friendships themselves. But this decline in friendships also poses a problem for any word-of-mouth dating site marketing strategy. People who have lots of friends are probably the least likely to benefit from dating apps, but they're the most likely to hear about the hypothetical "good dating app". I don't actually know how most of my friends met their partners — even people who I know many other things about. It's in my mind as an awkward question. Furthermore, most long-term relationships in my friend group are older than most dating apps. It would inevitably take years to build a reputation as a dating site that does this, because you don't know if you have a stable relationship until it stands the test of time. But investors generally aren't so patient.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  >If dating sites were actually trying to help their customers, they would do this; someone would have worked on it; there would be an internal lore about what was learned from these attempts. The absence of any of this shows that it just isn't a priority, and that's enough. Or maybe the absence of it shows that the problem is much harder than it sounds. > One problem with modern dating is that people don't have a potential partner's reputation to go on as much as they used to. Relationships formed "through friends" have declined significantly, in tandem with a decline in friendships themselves. But this decline in friendships also poses a problem for any word-of-mouth dating site marketing strategy. People who have lots of friends are probably the least likely to benefit from dating apps, but they're the most likely to hear about the hypothetical "good dating app". This is correct, but good luck implementing this in a business while having to tip toe around claims of discrimination, quite possibly getting entangled with the law.
cataphract 4y ago
Exactly, the factors that really matter for a relationship to work (empathy, emotional availability, tolerance, will to change, etc.) are not presentable in a profile. You cannot make "great matches" without that information, even putting aside the fact that people lie. The dating apps actually work better for hookups (including people travelling), and the companies know this, which is why Tinder had those ads promoting "single life".
rjh29 4y ago
The majority of people who sign up will quit after a month or two anyway (or forget about it and keep subscribing). It doesn't seem like the quality of the matches being bad would affect income in any substantial way. And even if two people pair up, they might sign up again when their relationship hits the rocks. Emotional cheating is a thing.
fayazari 4y ago
[flagged]

smnrchrds 4y ago

> Dominating the dating site market is a money printing machine Not if you already have almost the whole market to yourself. > Match Group ... owns and operates the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFish, UPWARD, Ship, and OurTime, totalling over 45 global dating companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group

red_trumpet 4y ago
I fail to see how this would not make it a money printing machine?
- Smar 4y ago
  It is already, regardless of quality of their product?
- smnrchrds 4y ago
  "If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful." - Steve Jobs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4
  - red_trumpet 4y ago
    I don't believe that quote to be true if we suppose "success = printing money". And if we don't suppose that, I do not see relevance of that quote.
googlryas 4y ago
Most of those companies were acquisitions for the match group, so basically build a great dating site and match group will pay you a barrel of money to buy your money printing machine.
- codr7 4y ago
  I once worked for a guy who supposedly was involved in the creation of the original match site, money was the only language he spoke.
cheriot 4y ago
Bumble being the largest one in the US that they don't own (only Tinder is larger). https://infogram.com/us-dating-app-marketshare-1h8n6m3konzmz4x https://infogram.com/us-dating-app-marketshare-1h8n6m3konzmz... Intuitively, the largest dating app has a moat because people will open the app that has the people they want to date. Nevertheless, Match has had to continue acquiring competitors in order to stay in first place. So maybe that moat isn't so defensible?
- Our_Benefactors 4y ago
  Dating apps seem more prone to the “eternal September” effect than other forms of social media. In practice, this looks like less quality messages being sent, more fake/catfish users, and monetization where it didn’t exist previously.

epicureanideal 4y ago

It’s not possible for them to make great matches in any significant quantity, because our society has become incapable of making good long term matches at all due to changes in morals, expectations, etc. And many individuals, probably a clear majority at this point, are not capable of being psychologically healthy relationship partners. A steady stream of top businessmen, actors, sportsmen etc. are being divorced by their wives. If these people can’t maintain a marriage, how much more difficult is it for most people?

idopmstuff 4y ago
Why would that group of people have an easier time maintaining a marriage than "average" people?
- cocoa19 4y ago
  Right, I don't have any proof, but I think it would be the other way around. Top execs are often married to their jobs with less time for family. Actors are exposed often to very liberal and beautiful people (affairs are common). And people on the lower economic rungs are more incentivized to stay together to spend less money.
  - epicureanideal 4y ago
    > And people on the lower economic rungs are more incentivized to stay together to spend less money. The research actually shows that the upper end of the income distribution is more likely to 1) marry and 2) remain married. The lower and middle classes have been most disrupted by social change in the last 50 years.
    - idopmstuff 4y ago
      Probably depends exactly where you draw the line, though - the A-list rich and famous types might well have greater rates of divorce, but there are few enough of them to bring down the average of the top 10% of earners or what have you.

scythe 4y ago

>they wouldn't bother taint their results. Results are tainted by default. The simplest dating app is a random number generator attached to a list of user IDs. This probably performs badly. (But who knows? Maybe build it and see what happens!) The question is simply whether there is really a deliberate, focused effort to identify who gets into long-term relationships and to replicate the conditions that lead to such relationships. If dating sites were actually trying to help their customers, they would do this; someone would have worked on it; there would be an internal lore about what was learned from these attempts. The absence of any of this shows that it just isn't a priority, and that's enough. >Dominating the dating site market is a money printing machine One problem with modern dating is that people don't have a potential partner's reputation to go on as much as they used to. Relationships formed "through friends" have declined significantly, in tandem with a decline in friendships themselves. But this decline in friendships also poses a problem for any word-of-mouth dating site marketing strategy. People who have lots of friends are probably the least likely to benefit from dating apps, but they're the most likely to hear about the hypothetical "good dating app". I don't actually know how most of my friends met their partners — even people who I know many other things about. It's in my mind as an awkward question. Furthermore, most long-term relationships in my friend group are older than most dating apps. It would inevitably take years to build a reputation as a dating site that does this, because you don't know if you have a stable relationship until it stands the test of time. But investors generally aren't so patient.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
>If dating sites were actually trying to help their customers, they would do this; someone would have worked on it; there would be an internal lore about what was learned from these attempts. The absence of any of this shows that it just isn't a priority, and that's enough. Or maybe the absence of it shows that the problem is much harder than it sounds. > One problem with modern dating is that people don't have a potential partner's reputation to go on as much as they used to. Relationships formed "through friends" have declined significantly, in tandem with a decline in friendships themselves. But this decline in friendships also poses a problem for any word-of-mouth dating site marketing strategy. People who have lots of friends are probably the least likely to benefit from dating apps, but they're the most likely to hear about the hypothetical "good dating app". This is correct, but good luck implementing this in a business while having to tip toe around claims of discrimination, quite possibly getting entangled with the law.

cataphract 4y ago

Exactly, the factors that really matter for a relationship to work (empathy, emotional availability, tolerance, will to change, etc.) are not presentable in a profile. You cannot make "great matches" without that information, even putting aside the fact that people lie. The dating apps actually work better for hookups (including people travelling), and the companies know this, which is why Tinder had those ads promoting "single life".

rjh29 4y ago

The majority of people who sign up will quit after a month or two anyway (or forget about it and keep subscribing). It doesn't seem like the quality of the matches being bad would affect income in any substantial way. And even if two people pair up, they might sign up again when their relationship hits the rocks. Emotional cheating is a thing.

fayazari 4y ago

[flagged]