4 ms·

Okcupid used to be really good, then they got bought out and turned into Tinder. Now it's just a wasteland out there, especially for guys.

some_furry 3y ago
My hetero friends tell me a lot of people they meet on apps are more interested in gaining OnlyFans subscribers than meeting people. I don't know how prevalent this phenomenon is, but that's at least 0.9 on the Mad Max scale. (As a demi/gay man, online dating is incredibly alien to me.)
- snickerbockers 3y ago
  It's true, at least 1/5 women on these sites is just trying to push a social media profile. Some of them don't even bother with a bio, it's just a few photos and a link.
- groestl 3y ago
  They are really easy to spot though. The ones that have no intention to meet and just signed up because of boredom, that's harder and wastes time.
- whstl 3y ago
  Not only OnlyFans profiles, but also Instagram. Some want to get to a few thousand followers and use it, I know even some people in relationships that did it. And then there's the bots which just start a generic conversation and recommend some Clash of Clans clone or something. But as mentioned, you realize that in the first 5 mins of interaction.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
OkCupid was really well thought out for making matches for relationships. The double connection nature of the questions that allowed not just answering questions but also what answers you'd accept and how strongly you felt about those answers was great. It also did a nice job of sussing out people's true personalities. The more questions they answered the more difficult it was to hide their true selves. One of my favorite examples of this was a question about why birds don't get harmed when they land on power lines. The question could be used to gauge a person's technical knowledge but the answer "They do but they express it poorly" was a signal of a sense of humor. Lots of questions were variations on each other but written differently which is another way of getting to a person's true core.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Why doesn't someone just make a new site that works like the old OkCupid and isn't owned by Match Group?
- crooked-v 3y ago
  The OKCupid model doesn't have the same short-term profits and/or VC returns as desperate people shelling out for dating app subscriptions, so nobody will fund it.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    How much does it actually cost? You set up a website. You put ads for chocolates and flowers on the site so you can recover your expenses. It's not like you have to build a state of the art fab. It's basically a messaging app, which is the sort of thing individuals have built as a side project.
    - 7373737373 3y ago
      Building it is easy, moderating it is hard
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        Moderating it is spam filtering. You limit signups to IP addresses in the the country of your target market and then ban signups from any IP address that tries to send an excessively large number of messages or has an excessively high block rate. At that point you're down to real users who are jerks, the solution to which is the block button and a message sorting algorithm that takes into account how many times it's been used against someone.
    - user_named 3y ago
      The why don't you do it. It'll be worth billions right. Now tell me all the reasons you won't do it.
donatj 3y ago
Found my wife on OKCupid back when it was still good in 2011. Haven’t used a dating app since, but their decline makes me pretty sad, I have fond memories of using it.
globular-toast 3y ago
OkCupid was full of weirdos, though. Source: I was one of them. Tinder hit on to a psychological hack that allowed normal people to use it. It's something to do with plausible deniability. Setting up a real dating profile signals that you know what you want but implies that you are lonely/unhappy. Tinder gives that vibe of "I'm just swiping, look at all these losers, I'm just having fun". So normies went on it too.

some_furry 3y ago

My hetero friends tell me a lot of people they meet on apps are more interested in gaining OnlyFans subscribers than meeting people. I don't know how prevalent this phenomenon is, but that's at least 0.9 on the Mad Max scale. (As a demi/gay man, online dating is incredibly alien to me.)

snickerbockers 3y ago
It's true, at least 1/5 women on these sites is just trying to push a social media profile. Some of them don't even bother with a bio, it's just a few photos and a link.
groestl 3y ago
They are really easy to spot though. The ones that have no intention to meet and just signed up because of boredom, that's harder and wastes time.
whstl 3y ago
Not only OnlyFans profiles, but also Instagram. Some want to get to a few thousand followers and use it, I know even some people in relationships that did it. And then there's the bots which just start a generic conversation and recommend some Clash of Clans clone or something. But as mentioned, you realize that in the first 5 mins of interaction.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

OkCupid was really well thought out for making matches for relationships. The double connection nature of the questions that allowed not just answering questions but also what answers you'd accept and how strongly you felt about those answers was great. It also did a nice job of sussing out people's true personalities. The more questions they answered the more difficult it was to hide their true selves. One of my favorite examples of this was a question about why birds don't get harmed when they land on power lines. The question could be used to gauge a person's technical knowledge but the answer "They do but they express it poorly" was a signal of a sense of humor. Lots of questions were variations on each other but written differently which is another way of getting to a person's true core.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

Why doesn't someone just make a new site that works like the old OkCupid and isn't owned by Match Group?

crooked-v 3y ago
The OKCupid model doesn't have the same short-term profits and/or VC returns as desperate people shelling out for dating app subscriptions, so nobody will fund it.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  How much does it actually cost? You set up a website. You put ads for chocolates and flowers on the site so you can recover your expenses. It's not like you have to build a state of the art fab. It's basically a messaging app, which is the sort of thing individuals have built as a side project.
  - 7373737373 3y ago
    Building it is easy, moderating it is hard
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Moderating it is spam filtering. You limit signups to IP addresses in the the country of your target market and then ban signups from any IP address that tries to send an excessively large number of messages or has an excessively high block rate. At that point you're down to real users who are jerks, the solution to which is the block button and a message sorting algorithm that takes into account how many times it's been used against someone.
  - user_named 3y ago
    The why don't you do it. It'll be worth billions right. Now tell me all the reasons you won't do it.

donatj 3y ago

Found my wife on OKCupid back when it was still good in 2011. Haven’t used a dating app since, but their decline makes me pretty sad, I have fond memories of using it.

globular-toast 3y ago

OkCupid was full of weirdos, though. Source: I was one of them. Tinder hit on to a psychological hack that allowed normal people to use it. It's something to do with plausible deniability. Setting up a real dating profile signals that you know what you want but implies that you are lonely/unhappy. Tinder gives that vibe of "I'm just swiping, look at all these losers, I'm just having fun". So normies went on it too.