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The fact that one company repeatedly bought out its competition and now owns, according the the article, 45 dating apps probably has a lot to do with why they s
by not2b 3y ago
The fact that one company repeatedly bought out its competition and now owns, according the the article, 45 dating apps probably has a lot to do with why they suck. Instead of competing by trying to be better, just buy out the rivals, gut them, and make everything worse. As long as the dominant player has lots of capital to buy any upstarts and the regulatory environment lets them do it, it can be an easier way to make money than actually being good would be.
- Exoristos 3y agoAs well as regulating them, Western governments might want to actually fund high-quality, not-for-profit dating systems of some kind. Improved health for citizens, lessened extremism, not to mention possibly boosted population growth could result.
- drstewart 3y agoI'd certainly be interested in the literature you have showing nonprofit dating apps reduce extremism, whatever that means.
- tompagenet2 3y agoI'm pretty sure the point being made is that people having partners helps reduce isolation which can lead to extremism in some
- autoexec 3y agoI haven't looked but I suspect that people in happy loving relationships are less likely to be extremists/terrorists than unhappy people without close ties or people in their lives to check in on their mental well-being.
- GMoromisato 3y agoI haven't looked either, but I think the correlation runs the other way: people likely to be extremists/terrorists have trouble forming happy, loving relationships. I guess the fact that we disagree reaffirms the parent's point that we should look to studies/research instead of assuming.
- ethanbond 3y agoSpoiler: it’s bidirectional. Looking for linear causality is a fool’s errand for most truly hard/persistent problems.
- GMoromisato 3y agoYeah, I can't disagree with that. But we're all fools at one time or another, aren't we?
- rightbyte 3y agoHaving kids makes you soften up alot too. Which should probably decrease the lure of war or other terrorism alot?
- bongoman37 3y ago[dead]
- Der_Einzige 3y agoWhy is the comment below mine dead? It’s truthful and factual
- autoexec 3y agoLooks like they were shadowbanned back in 2021.
- rightbyte 3y agoI guess you would have to adjust for other factors and compare within those nations. I am not claiming it is the only or even dominant factor. https://www.science.org/content/article/fatherhood-decreases-testosterone https://www.science.org/content/article/fatherhood-decreases... I think testosterone might have a big margin effect in unstable individuals.
- carabiner 3y agoRead: they need to legalize prostitution. There are curious in-between sites like Cuddlecomfort.com (for just platonic cuddling and anyone who's reported for sex work is banned), but it needs to be out in the open and regulated.
- jstarfish 3y ago"Hello Work, for Dating" would likely be a hit in more than just the west. Recruiters are just matchmakers after all.
- junar 3y agoThe Tokyo city government launched its own dating app recently. News article: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3248989/will-japan-see-more-marriages-tokyos-taxpayer-funded-ai-driven-dating-app-or-it-just-throwing-money https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3248989/will-j... Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39060790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39060790
- rendaw 3y ago> A test version will be released later this year
- nonrandomstring 3y ago> Western governments might want to actually fund [s] high-quality, not-for-profit dating systems of some kind. Improved health for citizens, lessened extremism, not to mention possibly boosted population growth could result. That's too sane! Human relationships are anathema to the profit, so what you suggest would be a disaster for capitalism and the meat grinder. Consumerism is driven by isolation, FOMO and insecurity. And without a supply of disocontented single young men, how will we feed the war machine? Slightly less cynically, one of the big factors we've found in recent research for episode 2 of "Love Isn't" [0] relates to the lack of public spaces. In the UK we've decimated parks to build shopping centres and more housing, and most of the pubs have closed. We spoke to several wealthy and intelligent UK citizens in their 30s or 40s who say they are very frustrated because dating apps are rubbish, but where do you meet people IRL now? [0] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=20 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=20
- fourseventy 3y agoYou want to put the government in control of who we date? No thanks.
- cogman10 3y agoI have to ask, how are you envisioning this goes poorly?
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoEasy - OP's imagining the government forces you to date people - instead of offering a loss-leading alternative to a monopoly. If you start with the presumption that the government can do nothing but be a dystopia - it's easy to imagine ways anything can end up being a dystopia.
- claytongulick 3y agoWhere there is government, there is politics. Do you think the government would be able to resist the temptation to engage in politics as it relates to dating?
- Syonyk 3y agoAs opposed to for-profit, ad-driven, surveillance capitalism companies with a demonstrated interest in short term profits and hoovering all the data they can? Yeah. I'd be willing to take that risk. Don't get me wrong. I don't think the government is a good group to do this. I just think they're a less-bad group than the usual parties.
- prepend 3y agoI have never used a government web site that was better than a marginal ad driven site. I can barely pay my trash bill and can’t imagine a dating app run by any aspect of US federal, state, or local government.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
- skrbjc 3y agoI've thought for a while now that it is a matter of national interest that your population couples up and has children. It's immensely important for the success of a nation and it's odd that the majority of how people meet now is through data apps and that there is no oversight over these at all. They have every incentive to match you with someone you are more likely to have a short term relationship than match you with someone that will result in a successful long term relationship. This has terrible long-term outcomes for a population at a large enough scale. With all of the talk of how algorithms can affect our society through news and social media, I've been somewhat surprised that dating app algorithms have not had much attention.
- nonrandomstring 3y agoIt is socially corrosive. However, "family values" have traditionally been framed as a conservative value in the USA/UK/AUS at least. So, how do we move "love and human relationships" back into a progressive position in a time when entrenched power profits from lonliness and division?
- thriftwy 3y ago[flagged]
- Retric 3y agoUS conservatives have nothing to do with maintaining or returning to historic norms. From massive government subsidies and radical tax policies to wild spending sprees they’ve completely abandoned past stances only keeping the name. Similarly modern democratic politicians have no real connection to the glass of water theory and similar stances. Voters on each side are extremely diverse to the point there’s little universal on either side. As should be obvious from the two party system.
- Retric 3y agoTo be clear I am not saying those stances are good or bad just different. Historically heroine was legal and women couldn’t vote. That’s not part of what people mean by conservatives, it’s a modern political ideology. Similarly, Democrats stances on tariffs etc have changed through the years. They aren’t particularly tied to 100+ year old ideas either.
- nvarsj 3y agoIt's already starting to happen (see Japan). As population growth plummets, governments will have to get involved.
- roenxi 3y agoThere are more fundamental questions here of whether we want population growth. There seems to be a de-facto equilibrium springing up where wealthy countries quietly drop below replacement rate fertility and then migration from poorer regions happens. It isn't immediately clear why this is a bad thing either. It seems intuitively fair, sustainable for the forseeable future, nobody is being forced to do anything against their will. Might be a good outcome. We can't all have growing populations; given the failures of manufacturing and energy policy in the west that would just lead to war and not having enough stuff to maintain a good lifestyle. We're already having trouble treading water when it comes to lifestyles, the last thing we need is more people.
- kmmlng 3y agoIt causes lots of problems because many of our systems have been set up in times of growth and won't function without it. Take for example "pay-as-you-go" pension systems in much of Europe. Here, you don't fund your own retirement, but the current working population funds the retirement of the current retirement population. This works great when you have population growth, because you can have e.g. five working people fund one person's retirement. If the ratio moves closer to 1:1 or worse, this becomes a lot more challenging. Of course, population growth cannot continue forever, so we will have to figure this out anyway. Still, for any individual country, the smart move seems to be to stave it off for as long as possible, observe how other countries deal with it, and then implement the solutions that have actually worked for others yourself.
- iggldiggl 3y ago> Take for example "pay-as-you-go" pension systems in much of Europe. Money by itself is worthless if you can't exchange it for actually useful goods and services. So non-"pay-as-you-go" pensions cannot circumvent demography, either – if too many retirees with their accumulated capital would be chasing too little working-age people providing goods and services, you'd just get inflation and all your accumulated capital became worth less.
- evantbyrne 3y agoWhat people need are 3rd spaces where they can touch grass together. Online dating is a failed social experiment. Most women won't touch it as-is. Once men start using AI generated imagery en masse, hopefully women will catch onto it and end it for good.
- d_burfoot 3y agoI think colleges would be well-advised to create dating systems that encourage healthy relationships (keyword: healthy) between students. Students who marry someone they met at university are much more likely to become enthusiastic alumni. And hookup culture is a disaster for everyone.
- bell-cot 3y agoColleges are already too deep in stuff they can't handle with student relationships gone wrong (date rape, etc.). Pushing their names / reputations / liabilities further out there by creating student dating apps would be idiotic.
- intrasight 3y agoOne of my daughter's high school classmates created "Marriage Pact".
- bombcar 3y agoAnyone suggesting a marriage pact to you is unsubtly flirting with you.
- almatabata 3y agoAll they need to do is work towards maintaining a healthy ration between man and women in their alumni. Something around 51% male and 49% women usually causes people to form more serious relationships. When the ratio is too skewed in the man's favor, they women feel pressured to participate in the hookup culture to secure a mate (source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24693022-date-onomics https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24693022-date-onomics). With the current trend of more women graduating from university, this will probably get worse. Working towards getting more men into universities will end up benefiting women because it will probably create a healthier dating culture.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago> possibly boosted population growth Without a financial stability and solved housing, this will be a hard one... hard to have a kid, if you have 4 roommates in your 30s. Let's not forget all the devaluing of trades and other non-college professions (where you start work at ~18, and start having kids at 20) in favour of colleges (in case of USA, with loans), slow rising careers and even if you manage to get a big enough house/apartment to put a kid in, you're 30+ by then, and having multiple kids is a lot harder.
- prawn 3y agoWhere are trades being devalued? In Australia, they seem incredibly in demand and paid well enough.
- Gormo 3y agoSure, let's put the political state in control of people's direct interpersonal relationships. What could possibly go wrong?
- Arech 3y agoRevive the original OkCupid!
- bsimpson 3y agoI can think of nothing more worth of a tinfoil hat than the government trying to control who you date.
- PaulHoule 3y agoThey ought to get some kind of restraining order against Match that prevents them from acquiring any more companies.
- not2b 3y agoThere are antitrust laws. They just need to enforce them properly.
- passwordoops 3y agoThe laws already exist, and have existed for nearly 100 years. Federal policy has been to ignore them since the 1980s in favor of "efficiency"
- thegrim33 3y agoIn a free market, if such a company's products are crappy, as you propose, then that means there's an opportunity for anyone that wants to make profit to provide an app that isn't crappy; they'd get rewarded for it. The question shouldn't be "how do we stop this company", it should be, "why aren't people providing competing, non-crappy, apps?". Let's fix the root issue rather than proposing regulation to regulate a problem that shouldn't exist.
- the_gastropod 3y agoThis ignores a whole swath of complex social dynamics. Plenty of businesses exist that are horrible, but extremely difficult to dethrone. Ticketmaster is probably one of the less controversial examples.
- deprecative 3y agoMoney. You make money. That's why people aren't out competing. You get paid money. Lots of money.
- hibikir 3y agoThere's been a lot of discussion about this. My favorite argument there is that there's a big difference between what makes a dating app profitable, and what makes it good at finding people long term relationships. Not unlike how Amazon is far better off showing you ads in a search than giving you the best matching item that you probably want. The features that make an app crappier are what makes it sticky and lucrative. Making an app better at matching people is expensive, but doesn't give you revenue. The owners heading in that direction will get offers from the crappier, more profitable app maker that are hard to refuse.
- margalabargala 3y agoThis actually opens up a lot of opportunities. With the existing hegemony of Match, a new company doesn't actually need to worry about becoming profitable; if they can be good enough at matchmaking that they start to catch on, then they can rely on a buyout from Match. Much like how a decade ago, "getting bought by Google" was the business plan of a lot of companies, many of which did get acquired by google.
- tayo42 3y agoSeems like a way to make alot of money. Make your own app, make a ton of money being better or get a huge exit payout when your bought up lol
- benced 3y agoidk is Bumble a lot better? I don't think it is and now they've added ads that have a timer to skip. The fundamentals of this market makes me think dating apps are destined to be trash.
- interstice 3y agoSounds like a whole cottage industry could take advantage of this and repeatedly build competitor apps. How is this not an issue? Non competes?
- webel0 3y agoA dating app is a two sided market. And those are hard to get going. You need a lot of marketing, for one.
- passwordoops 3y agoAnd you've just described how business works since the 1980s. Welcome to "market efficiency"
- IIAOPSW 3y agoI feel like there's a genius adversarial strategy to be had here. It seems to me the dominant player is overvaluing the possibility of being displaced and is misallocating capital to acquire competition of dubious merits. I can leverage this by making a passable clone of their product in the hopes of being bought out for much more than I'm worth.
- generalizations 3y agoThe hardest part is users. I’d imagine what they’re actually buying is the marketshare of the competition. Note that ‘subpar matching to keep users on the app’ only works if you control a large majority of the market. Which is all to say, it’s not the app clone you’re selling them. It’s the users you stole and are selling back.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoSubpar matching is a consequence of 80%+ being rejected by default. You either exclude them from your platform or string them along to monetize them. You're not going to find a technical solution to reduce bias in human behavior.
- generalizations 3y agoAnecdotally, some of those apps used to be a lot better at matching people up. It's totally possible to match way more than 20% - but why bother, if you can just string them along?
- BurningFrog 3y agoBy standard Economic theory, that is not a stable strategy, since it incentivises starting new dating apps. It only has to be moderately successful to ensure a profitable exit. Over time, Match would run out of money. Given that Economists overwhelmingly get these things right more than our intuitions, I'm really curious what explanations they have.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago> Given that Economists overwhelmingly get these things right more than our intuitions, I'm really curious what explanations they have. Why doesn't it? If someone is willing to sell you something for $1M - and you can make it user hostile and extract $10M from it - why not keep making that $1M purchase of new dating apps? As long as Match buys the apps for less than what they can extract from them - it's sustainable.
- user_7832 3y ago> since it incentivises starting new dating apps It might, but there are lots of sticky things in human behaviour. A person fully aware of the situation in your statement, and only looking for money may do so, but the vast majority of people (off HN) likely do not have the skills (tech/business), do not care about the skills, might not want to start a company or simply are happy enough with their life to not want to rock the boat too much. Here's a mathematical question: if you could flip a coin, with a 50% chance of getting a billion dollars, and a 50% chance of never having more than $1000 in your bank, would you flip the coin? The "mathematically correct" answer would be to take the bet, but the rational decision any well-settled person would take is very likely not to flip.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- safety1st 3y agoYeah, to NPR's credit they do touch on this, but I think this is yet another facet of American life and business where the answer is the same, and simple. There is a monopoly in this sector of the economy and the monopolist's profit incentives are opposed to human life. In particular this monopoly stands to make the most money by lying and claiming to facilitate the creation of relationships, while in actuality not delivering that promise so that you stay subscribed. Match is just doing what economic incentives compel it to, but they are incentivized to prevent people from developing secure long-term relationships and starting families, which is pretty sinister. It's all right there and clear as day, simple economics, and Match is probably breaking the law at this point as it erodes our belief in love itself.
- tareqak 3y agoI honestly think there are many such situations today, and they should be identified so that those who have qualms can avoid those sorts of industries and businesses in the same way people avoid allergens, addictions, and other harmful substances and activities. People need to look beyond responsibilities to a company’s shareholders and look at responsibilities towards the shareholders of their communities and societies: their fellow human beings.