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> > There's nothing more exhausting as a guy than to write messages and basically get very few if any replies.

> As a really quick point, dating sites are quite explicitly not built for men. They acquire men at a far higher rate than women, and men ~tend~ to be the ones approaching women, and so pretty much every feature should (from an objective point of view) be designed to filter out men that women aren't interested in, so women receive fewer attempts at interaction from them.

Your dismissal of the importance of not wasting the time of men doesn't work if higher quality men have more of their time wasted. That is, if the men who write detailed messages get worse results than the men who write a thousand identical one-liners (or who swipe right on everything, etc.), then the former type of men will leave the site and women will be left with the latter type.

More generally, I've talked to many women who decline to actively seek out good men in real life, and who explicitly justify this based on their observations that there is a deluge of men trying to get their attention. So they decide they'll just passively filter the seemingly-unlimited supply of men who approach them. The key flaw is the assumption that the pool of men is unchanged compared to an active strategy.

> Your dismissal of the importance of not wasting the time of men doesn't work if higher quality men have more of their time wasted. That is, if the men who write detailed messages get worse results than the men who write a thousand identical one-liners (or who swipe right on everything, etc.), then the former type of men will leave the site and women will be left with the latter type.

Exactly.

And this change makes the value of a "like" and the value of sending an interesting message the same when it comes to the prospect of getting someone's attention. Incentives matter, people who get it will shift attention to improving their profile pictures and deploying likes over messages.

Or shift their attention outside the service, as both you and the GP have said, either to another service or IRL activity.

> if higher quality men have more of their time wasted... if the men who write detailed messages get worse results than the men who write a thousand identical one-liners (or who swipe right on everything, etc.), then the former type of men will leave the site and women will be left with the latter type.

Yeah, that's not what makes a man "high quality" by the data and revealed preferences online. Attractiveness does. The men any woman wants to see on a dating site online don't have their time wasted, because they get responses to whatever they write.

I and another couple I know of are married/engaged 5 years after meeting on OKC. Maybe it's more effective in rural environments? Social meetups don't really exist outside of major cities, and finding compatible partners is difficult in lower population areas.

Perhaps! I can't stand rural areas for that reason, tbh, I need things to do and be part of.

Oddly, I find much more community engagement in rural areas. While cities often feel more isolating,even with more people. In a city, people are always there, a nusiance or a boon. But in rural areas, human contact has a higher value, and is often treated as such. Just my observations from living all over the US.

>The bias against PoC on dating sites is a serious problem

Why is it a problem? Is the bias against eating kale a serious problem? Is this bias against bungee jumping something that needs to be solved?

Because people are people, not things to buy in a supermarket, obviously.

You can count me in if you want to, I had a good serious long-term relationship that originated on a dating site.