There are several traps startups can fall into, problems that seem like they have no good solution, problems where the startup can "Reinvent X". Travel is a pri

There are several traps startups can fall into, problems that seem like they have no good solution, problems where the startup can "Reinvent X". Travel is a prime example but another is dating websites. One can say that Ashley Madison was a scam posing as a "dating" website (given the infidelity association) but the bigger story I think is that this describes all dating websites. It's just a question of degree. For simplicity, I"ll speak in the heteronormative sense since this is the largest market. AM's tactics here of using fake profiles is a common tactic used by dating websites. Founders will argue this is to bootstrap the site, particularly because there tend to be more men than women on these sites. At what point does this rise to the level of being a scam? Remember that pretty much all these sites have paid features and subscriptions to send more messsages or likes or to raise your pfoile. It's a common sentiment in the pharma world that there's money in the treatment but no money in the cure. This seems to apply here too. A "cure" here is your site's users find a long-term relationship and thus cease to be paying customers. As a business you want them to keep coming back. AM was really just a headline-drawing hook on the model the pervades this space. "Have an affair" is just marketing. We love to extol the virtues of the "profit motive" but so often when you look at the details you see the company's interests and the user's interests not only don't align but are directly in opposition.