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How does that work? I keep hearing this objection but how is the app supposedly stopping you from forming a happy relationship? Operator would need to know who

by blfr 2y ago

How does that work? I keep hearing this objection but how is the app supposedly stopping you from forming a happy relationship? Operator would need to know who is a good matchup for you and then not present you that person but present you enough other subjectively attractive (but again somehow not good) matches so that you keep swiping. That's almost omniscience when it comes to dating which they would need to attain from a phone number, pic, couple of sentences, and maybe whatever they can buy via adtech.

brigadier132 2y ago
> I keep hearing this objection but how is the app supposedly stopping you from forming a happy relationship? Most of these apps use ab testing to determine what features are launched. The speculation is that they optimize for retention and conversion into paying users, not for forming long lasting relationships. Retaining users is good for a business but terrible for people trying to form long term relationships. It's pure speculation that this is what they are optimizing for in their experiments but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  I think it’s much simpler: must relationships don’t end in forever monogamy. There’s like a 90% chance someone who leaves the dating pool will re-enter it eventually. They don’t really need any algorithmic matching magic. Also, the pool of people online dating is going to be somewhat (perhaps heavily) sample biased. People who are likely to form long term relationships will, over time, leave the dating pool at a higher rate than those who aren’t. By the time you hit age 35, you find the dating pool to be mostly people who haven’t permanently paired off for very obvious reasons (myself included, btw). So overall, I just don’t think they worry at all about people leaving the dating pool. I do think their incentive structure is broken and that plus the fact that they are all owned by two companies (and even one of them, Bumble, doesn’t just buy up all the competition) does prevent them from making the metric about user satisfaction though. I just don’t think it’s broken for this reason.
k__ 2y ago
Also, it doesn't make much sense on platforms like Tinder, where the majority of users does short term hook-ups all the time. Even if they meet someone there, they will come back to meet more.
- szundi 2y ago
  However the swipe from the women’s side selects for at least some kind of compatibility. Also my wife is from Tinder.
deleted 2y ago
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iambateman 2y ago
This is the wrong way to think about it. The optimization problem happens before a second person is directly involved at all. The operator simply encourages behaviors which people _feel_ moves them closer to meeting someone but which are relatively time-inefficient. So the user has to spend much more time on the app, which increases all the relevant metrics of engagement and profit. To fix the problem, one would expect an app which either charges a lifetime fee upfront or upon delivery. Since it is hard to collect payment on delivery, the best case to eliminate the principal-agent problem would be a $2,499 one time fee for unlimited lifetime service.

by blfr 2y ago

brigadier132 2y ago

> I keep hearing this objection but how is the app supposedly stopping you from forming a happy relationship? Most of these apps use ab testing to determine what features are launched. The speculation is that they optimize for retention and conversion into paying users, not for forming long lasting relationships. Retaining users is good for a business but terrible for people trying to form long term relationships. It's pure speculation that this is what they are optimizing for in their experiments but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case.

mattmaroon 2y ago
I think it’s much simpler: must relationships don’t end in forever monogamy. There’s like a 90% chance someone who leaves the dating pool will re-enter it eventually. They don’t really need any algorithmic matching magic. Also, the pool of people online dating is going to be somewhat (perhaps heavily) sample biased. People who are likely to form long term relationships will, over time, leave the dating pool at a higher rate than those who aren’t. By the time you hit age 35, you find the dating pool to be mostly people who haven’t permanently paired off for very obvious reasons (myself included, btw). So overall, I just don’t think they worry at all about people leaving the dating pool. I do think their incentive structure is broken and that plus the fact that they are all owned by two companies (and even one of them, Bumble, doesn’t just buy up all the competition) does prevent them from making the metric about user satisfaction though. I just don’t think it’s broken for this reason.

k__ 2y ago

Also, it doesn't make much sense on platforms like Tinder, where the majority of users does short term hook-ups all the time. Even if they meet someone there, they will come back to meet more.

szundi 2y ago
However the swipe from the women’s side selects for at least some kind of compatibility. Also my wife is from Tinder.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

iambateman 2y ago

This is the wrong way to think about it. The optimization problem happens before a second person is directly involved at all. The operator simply encourages behaviors which people _feel_ moves them closer to meeting someone but which are relatively time-inefficient. So the user has to spend much more time on the app, which increases all the relevant metrics of engagement and profit. To fix the problem, one would expect an app which either charges a lifetime fee upfront or upon delivery. Since it is hard to collect payment on delivery, the best case to eliminate the principal-agent problem would be a $2,499 one time fee for unlimited lifetime service.