4 ms·

This is due to the nature of the apps that maximize revenue generation over customer success. The apps can otherwise trivially be structure with throttles to en

This is due to the nature of the apps that maximize revenue generation over customer success. The apps can otherwise trivially be structure with throttles to ensure that almost everyone is getting matched, not to excess, also that only active users are matched, but this would greatly hinder revenue generation. The revenue exists in exploiting the male wallet with shiny things and false promises. If empirical communism buys you mass murder, empirical capitalism buys you rampant monopolization and relentless exploitation. Perhaps we need something like a non-profit donation-driven Signal Foundation but for free dating. It would use concepts from distributed systems, namely backpressure, throttling, and rate-limiting to ensure that almost everyone can feel a winner.

latchkey 2y ago
Success would be to stop using the app. Which is exactly what they don't want you to do.
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
  That's true if the aim is a long-term monogamous relationship for users, which is obviously true for a lot of users, but these days not all of them.
haliskerbas 2y ago
Exactly this. A great example is apps like Coffee Meets Bagel which sometimes tout themselves as the "solution" but then have a separate section of "select" candidates that you have to pay to talk to. So basically if you have a desirable profile (in this case it's basically if you're hot because that's the primary part of a profile), they monetize you without your knowledge or permission and charge the other side to initiate conversation.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
  Same with Hinge, the additional attractiveness of the paid-only profiles is noticeable.
baron816 2y ago
You could argue that the problem is that they’re all “matching apps”, not dating apps. They make connections, like a matchmaker. If their revenue model was based around second, third, fourth dates, etc, and maintaining a health relationship, we might all be better off.
hinkley 2y ago
YouTube is feeding me a lot of standup shorts lately and one joked about the ridiculousness of one of the dating sites (Tinder?) offering a lifetime membership. There might be a few “lifestyle” people for whom that deal makes sense but for everyone else that’s a huge red flag. It would be like your PT offering you infinite visits. The whole point of PT is for me to get better. If I’m still coming in a year I probably need surgery not more Physical Therapy.
- bmacho 2y ago
  How is it a "huge red flag" instead of a good thing, making sure that you want the same thing as Tinder (or PT): solving your problem?
  - hinkley 2y ago
    the problem Tinder is used to solve is being single. If you use it for ten years straight it has definitely not solved your problem. It’s therefore a Market for Lemons.
sushibowl 2y ago
Dating apps have fundamentally misaligned incentives with their customers: customer success implies that the customer will stop paying. For this reason no dating app that charges for access will ever be a good way to find a relationship (note that the same is not true for hookups). One possible way to remedy this: the dating app is free to sign on, but you pay a fee when you quit. This would incentivize the app to find you a good match as soon as possible. The issue is, how to know when a match is successful?
BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
I'm always curious why this doesn't create a market for a marketplace that explicitly doesn't do this, one that actually tries to help people get good matches instead of bleeding them for revenue. Surely the promise of "exactly like what OKCupid used to be and without secretly trying to fuck your wallet or waste your time, $5/month" would bring in tons of customers, including women. And then when Match Group comes knocking with a bag of money, even if you sell to them, they can't own the model. Just spin it up again with a new name. People like to talk about how making successful matches loses customers, but you can honestly view the business like how real-estate prices always go up because there are just always more people today who need housing than there were yesterday. You don't need to keep milking existing customers. New potential customers are constantly coming of age faster than you can match them together anyway.
- bradlys 2y ago
  You need a lot of users to make a dating app successful. That’s the biggest hurdle for any dating app currently. How’re you going to get people to know about your app if you don’t have a large marketing budget? It’s gonna be hard. You’d need a big influencer or celebrity or something to pimp it out. You’re then running into the same issue. Also, no one wants to pay for a dating app upfront. Especially women. Remember, women basically never pay for these apps. It’s men who pay. It’s the same shit for nightclubs. Women are insanely desirable users purely for the sake of generating more revenue off the men.
  - BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
    > How’re you going to get people to know about your app if you don’t have a large marketing budget? Why would you not have a marketing budget? > Also, no one wants to pay for a dating app upfront. Especially women. That's interesting, because I just read an article talking about how people, especially women, are fed up with their dating apps now. Maybe instead of abusing the women on your platform by stringing them along to keep them around for as long as possible, give them a good experience and get them to get their friends to sign up.
    - 2y ago
jjmarr 2y ago
I'd love to disrupt the dating app industry with a non-profit charitable model. There are many ultra wealthy people that recognize declining birth rates and population will destroy economic growth, and that this isn't a problem that can be solved with more competition. In software, when there's a technology that can benefit everyone in an industry but individual control creates perverse incentives, companies will band together to create standards organizations or non-profits to harness the tech in a way that benefits everyone. This already happens with the Linux Foundation and open-source more generally. Dating apps should have the same model because the negative externality of a perpetually single society is going to kill the economy and possibly destroy the world.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  Taking a page from the Signal Foundation, it could have operating expenses of $50+ million per year. After bootstrapping for the first five years, donations might begin to recover 33% of the operating expenses per year. Even with extremely efficient software and lean operations, the expenses could probably be halved at best. Adjust for 5% inflation and 20% growth per year. I think this could basically be a national service as important as social security, but for the world.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >There are many ultra wealthy people that recognize declining birth rates and population will destroy economic growth Hence the corporate and government push for open borders and mass migration despite citizen/voters opposition and the shift towards right wing populism.
  - archagon 2y ago
    No mainstream politicians are pushing for “open borders.” It is an extremist, unpopular idea.
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      >No mainstream politicians are pushing for “open borders.” Ever hear of Angela Merkel and her Willkommenskultur which upset a lot of people and countries? And various EU politicians promoting the same policy.

latchkey 2y ago

Success would be to stop using the app. Which is exactly what they don't want you to do.

TulliusCicero 2y ago
That's true if the aim is a long-term monogamous relationship for users, which is obviously true for a lot of users, but these days not all of them.

haliskerbas 2y ago

Exactly this. A great example is apps like Coffee Meets Bagel which sometimes tout themselves as the "solution" but then have a separate section of "select" candidates that you have to pay to talk to. So basically if you have a desirable profile (in this case it's basically if you're hot because that's the primary part of a profile), they monetize you without your knowledge or permission and charge the other side to initiate conversation.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
Same with Hinge, the additional attractiveness of the paid-only profiles is noticeable.

baron816 2y ago

You could argue that the problem is that they’re all “matching apps”, not dating apps. They make connections, like a matchmaker. If their revenue model was based around second, third, fourth dates, etc, and maintaining a health relationship, we might all be better off.

hinkley 2y ago

YouTube is feeding me a lot of standup shorts lately and one joked about the ridiculousness of one of the dating sites (Tinder?) offering a lifetime membership. There might be a few “lifestyle” people for whom that deal makes sense but for everyone else that’s a huge red flag. It would be like your PT offering you infinite visits. The whole point of PT is for me to get better. If I’m still coming in a year I probably need surgery not more Physical Therapy.

bmacho 2y ago
How is it a "huge red flag" instead of a good thing, making sure that you want the same thing as Tinder (or PT): solving your problem?
- hinkley 2y ago
  the problem Tinder is used to solve is being single. If you use it for ten years straight it has definitely not solved your problem. It’s therefore a Market for Lemons.

sushibowl 2y ago

Dating apps have fundamentally misaligned incentives with their customers: customer success implies that the customer will stop paying. For this reason no dating app that charges for access will ever be a good way to find a relationship (note that the same is not true for hookups). One possible way to remedy this: the dating app is free to sign on, but you pay a fee when you quit. This would incentivize the app to find you a good match as soon as possible. The issue is, how to know when a match is successful?

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago

I'm always curious why this doesn't create a market for a marketplace that explicitly doesn't do this, one that actually tries to help people get good matches instead of bleeding them for revenue. Surely the promise of "exactly like what OKCupid used to be and without secretly trying to fuck your wallet or waste your time, $5/month" would bring in tons of customers, including women. And then when Match Group comes knocking with a bag of money, even if you sell to them, they can't own the model. Just spin it up again with a new name. People like to talk about how making successful matches loses customers, but you can honestly view the business like how real-estate prices always go up because there are just always more people today who need housing than there were yesterday. You don't need to keep milking existing customers. New potential customers are constantly coming of age faster than you can match them together anyway.

bradlys 2y ago
You need a lot of users to make a dating app successful. That’s the biggest hurdle for any dating app currently. How’re you going to get people to know about your app if you don’t have a large marketing budget? It’s gonna be hard. You’d need a big influencer or celebrity or something to pimp it out. You’re then running into the same issue. Also, no one wants to pay for a dating app upfront. Especially women. Remember, women basically never pay for these apps. It’s men who pay. It’s the same shit for nightclubs. Women are insanely desirable users purely for the sake of generating more revenue off the men.
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  > How’re you going to get people to know about your app if you don’t have a large marketing budget? Why would you not have a marketing budget? > Also, no one wants to pay for a dating app upfront. Especially women. That's interesting, because I just read an article talking about how people, especially women, are fed up with their dating apps now. Maybe instead of abusing the women on your platform by stringing them along to keep them around for as long as possible, give them a good experience and get them to get their friends to sign up.
  - 2y ago

jjmarr 2y ago

I'd love to disrupt the dating app industry with a non-profit charitable model. There are many ultra wealthy people that recognize declining birth rates and population will destroy economic growth, and that this isn't a problem that can be solved with more competition. In software, when there's a technology that can benefit everyone in an industry but individual control creates perverse incentives, companies will band together to create standards organizations or non-profits to harness the tech in a way that benefits everyone. This already happens with the Linux Foundation and open-source more generally. Dating apps should have the same model because the negative externality of a perpetually single society is going to kill the economy and possibly destroy the world.

OutOfHere 2y ago
Taking a page from the Signal Foundation, it could have operating expenses of $50+ million per year. After bootstrapping for the first five years, donations might begin to recover 33% of the operating expenses per year. Even with extremely efficient software and lean operations, the expenses could probably be halved at best. Adjust for 5% inflation and 20% growth per year. I think this could basically be a national service as important as social security, but for the world.
Rinzler89 2y ago
>There are many ultra wealthy people that recognize declining birth rates and population will destroy economic growth Hence the corporate and government push for open borders and mass migration despite citizen/voters opposition and the shift towards right wing populism.
- archagon 2y ago
  No mainstream politicians are pushing for “open borders.” It is an extremist, unpopular idea.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >No mainstream politicians are pushing for “open borders.” Ever hear of Angela Merkel and her Willkommenskultur which upset a lot of people and countries? And various EU politicians promoting the same policy.