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and OKCupid engages in price discrimination too, and has done for many years. The price you'll see for OKCupids premium service ("A-list") is based on a variety

and OKCupid engages in price discrimination too, and has done for many years. The price you'll see for OKCupids premium service ("A-list") is based on a variety of factors: attractiveness, age, location, gender... an attractive woman will pay ~$3.99 per month whereas an unattractive middle aged man will pay ~$20.

WildUtah 12y ago
How do they do the attractiveness rating? Is it an internal eval or some kind of crowdsourced bayesian inferential hotornot?
- bazookajoes 12y ago
  okcupid is now very similar to tinder in that users can rate each other on a 0-1 scale. (It used to be 1-5). The rating algorithm is probably a lot like pagerank. Ratings by users that are rated highly matter more. The potential signals are: * swipes yes or no * messages received * length of conversations * number of unmatches/blocks received
- logn 12y ago
  It's the latter (using things like click through rates). I'm not sure if any one blog sums up their methods, but they write about this topic a lot. In one post I read, they specifically mention that having a high quality camera correlates with their attractiveness ratings and so do different types of poses. So "attractiveness" might be better thought of as popularity, not beauty (though, that's the approximation).
markbao 12y ago
I was surprised at this so I looked it up. Anecdata: http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/28oeo6/alist_subscription_prices_are_based_off_age/ http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/28oeo6/alist_subscr... If this is true, it's pretty cruel. Yeah yeah supply and demand, but that doesn't make it any less harsh.
tsotha 12y ago
Seriously? That's just the kind of guy who will be summarily ignored, too. What a waste of twenty bucks.
- citricsquid 12y ago
  OKCupid is smart about that too, based on how attractive you are you'll see -- and be visible to -- people in a similar "league" to you. You're not going to be seeing beautiful women who could model if you're an unattractive male. This is pretty good for people who are unattractive, because they can focus on people they're more likely to have success with. https://www.quora.com/Is-being-one-of-the-most-attractive-people-on-OKCupid-a-permanent-status https://www.quora.com/Is-being-one-of-the-most-attractive-pe...
  - tsotha 12y ago
    If you're an ugly middle aged man and you're willing to date ugly middle aged women there's no need for a dating site. Women have lost most of their power in the dating market by that point.

WildUtah 12y ago

How do they do the attractiveness rating? Is it an internal eval or some kind of crowdsourced bayesian inferential hotornot?

bazookajoes 12y ago
okcupid is now very similar to tinder in that users can rate each other on a 0-1 scale. (It used to be 1-5). The rating algorithm is probably a lot like pagerank. Ratings by users that are rated highly matter more. The potential signals are: * swipes yes or no * messages received * length of conversations * number of unmatches/blocks received
logn 12y ago
It's the latter (using things like click through rates). I'm not sure if any one blog sums up their methods, but they write about this topic a lot. In one post I read, they specifically mention that having a high quality camera correlates with their attractiveness ratings and so do different types of poses. So "attractiveness" might be better thought of as popularity, not beauty (though, that's the approximation).

markbao 12y ago

I was surprised at this so I looked it up. Anecdata: http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/28oeo6/alist_subscription_prices_are_based_off_age/ http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/28oeo6/alist_subscr... If this is true, it's pretty cruel. Yeah yeah supply and demand, but that doesn't make it any less harsh.

tsotha 12y ago

Seriously? That's just the kind of guy who will be summarily ignored, too. What a waste of twenty bucks.

citricsquid 12y ago
OKCupid is smart about that too, based on how attractive you are you'll see -- and be visible to -- people in a similar "league" to you. You're not going to be seeing beautiful women who could model if you're an unattractive male. This is pretty good for people who are unattractive, because they can focus on people they're more likely to have success with. https://www.quora.com/Is-being-one-of-the-most-attractive-people-on-OKCupid-a-permanent-status https://www.quora.com/Is-being-one-of-the-most-attractive-pe...
- tsotha 12y ago
  If you're an ugly middle aged man and you're willing to date ugly middle aged women there's no need for a dating site. Women have lost most of their power in the dating market by that point.