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OkCupid, Match.com, Chemistry.com, PlentyOfFish, and Tinder are all owned by the same company. They like to hide that fact and pretend they're all separate entities to end users, but it's true. Some of them were once separate, then purchased later, but Tinder was part of them from the very beginning. So they're not really "losing" users, just shuffling them around from site to site.

http://iac.com/brand/match-group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group

The good ol' illusion of choice.

I appreciate the reminder! Now that you've said this I remember this being mentioned here before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9884518

Yikes, I knew that OKC, Match, and Chemistry were owned by the same company, but I had no idea they'd become such a monopoly. Thanks for enlightening us!

IAC is kind of like a private equity firm for internet properties; they own a lot of random stuff

You can pretty much chart the downfall of OkCupid as a result of selling out to Match. When it was a sort of overgrown hobby project run by a couple of data geeks, it was fun. (Hell, even if you weren't necessarily interested in, or comfortable with the idea of, "online dating", the extensive quizzes were a great signup engine.)

When the founders sold to Match, and presumably also got less involved in the day-to-day, suddenly I stopped hearing anything good about it anymore. I can't personally vouch for it, being out of the market at the time, but it went from being a pretty reliable recommendation that I'd often hear friends talking about, to quickly developing a reputation for having a high creep factor, lots of low-effort and fake profiles, etc.

As with many businesses, I think the demand for growth uber alles killed it. If they had been content being a niche service, they would have survived and served that niche well. But too few businesses (especially startups that get sold) are allowed to do that; their management requires they either shoot the moon or burn up trying.

In particular, I think there is a solid niche for an OKC-like dating site that actively rejects "mobile first" low-word-count design in favor of the desktop (check your messages when you get home, no "swiping" from the shitter, etc.), emphasizes profiles with lots of information and underlying data to construct matches on something other than photos, and basically serves a very literate demographic. Basically OKC circa 2004. Though today, a modern version would also need tools to aggressively block users that are abusive or just plain "creepy", because there's an Eternal September aspect to the Internet today that didn't really exist back then, that you'd need to combat -- spam-type adaptive filters would probably do the job ('is this spam' is a pretty vague question for a machine, so is 'is this creepy', but you could teach the filters over time given a good dataset and feedback mechanism).

> One of the problems with Tinder is its nebulous ethos. Is it a dating app or is it a hookup app?

That's a feature, not a bug. For many/most people, there's not a strict binary division. Dates can turn into hookup and hookups can turn into real relationships. I know multiple friends in long-term relationships which started as Tinder hookups.

This. I've been dating someone I met through tinder for two years now. It's started out as friends with benefits and evolved into a relationship where we are planning our future together.

> One of the problems with Tinder is its nebulous ethos.

It's not a really a problem though because people can indicate for themselves in their profiles, either explicitly or implicitly, what type of relationship they are looking for; it can be different things for different people.

> Tinder is brilliant in that it focuses entirely on vanity, ego, and lust, far more so than any of its predecessors.

But I think that misses the main appeal of Tinder, which is that once you match with someone you basically have an invitation to start a conversation with them, and hence are less likely to be wasting your time (or someone else's). IIRC, on other sites, you can simply message any random user and thus are much more likely to spend time messaging someone who has absolutely no interest in you.

> It's not a really a problem though because people can indicate for themselves in their profiles, either explicitly or implicitly, what type of relationship they are looking for; it can be different things for different people.

In my anecdotal experience (which means feel free take with a handful of salt), it never really worked out that way. I've gone on dates via Tinder where a profile explicitly stated "no hookups" or something to that effect that did, indeed, turn into hookups.

Also, and this is the more obvious thing, I think, is that a dating platform designed to not require you to actually read a profile before deciding if you're interested isn't going to be the ideal place for stating "preferences". Hence, my anecdotal experience.

Yup, "no hookups" -> wants a hookup

So, it is indicated

"The only alternative I can recommend is real life. Nothing beats it.."

The problem I have with meeting people from "real life" is that they're mostly random people that I usually have little to nothing in common with.

At least on some dating sites I can list my interests, and the people who reply can self-select to have some or even many of these things in common with me.

There are almost certainly hacker meetups or groups in your area that you can attend. My computer science teacher is currently hooking up with someone he met that way ;)

Being a member of my local lug, this is the very last place most males will find anything other than a lot of other nerdy males. Which is cool, but it's a horrible way to hook up. Your odds get really bad.

And as someone else pointed out, it's a great way to drive off women. The last thing a woman wants it to be gawked at by 16 men because they're looking for that nerdy girl. So they stop coming and you end up with the original situation, where it's 16 nerdy guys

Behavior like this is why there’s rampant sexual harassment in places that should ostensibly be about something other than hooking up. I would recommend going to hacker meet ups to hack, and going elsewhere like a bar or club to look for a hookup.

Bars or Clubs are for people who like drinking and dancing. It's very unlikely that you will randomly find someone there who shares meaningful interests.

Is this a discussion about finding people to date, or to hang out with? If it’s just about expanding your social network then you’re right, bars are bad unless your shared interests are drinking and dancing. But it seemed as if this thread was suggesting using social situations that aren’t about dating to find people to date.

It doesn't have to be exclusively one or the other.

It's like you are blaming people for having "impure intentions".

Lots of things are like that.

People who go to a local food event go there to eat food but also they know they are going to meet some people that they may like, at least for some people that's a part of the motivation too.

There's a definitive stigma to attending events just to hook up with people. Our local Reddit NYC meetup group actively keeps an eye for people who appear to be doing this, because they keep showing up.

And the problem isn't that they're looking for someone to date; the problem is that they're not at all invested in the group - and if you go to any group with only the intention of picking up a date, that's the vibe you'll throw off as well, and you'll be unwelcome there.

If you are a straight male, statistically speaking a hacker meetup is probably not the best place to go for that :)

> The problem I have with meeting people from "real life" is that they're mostly random people that I usually have little to nothing in common with.

"Real life" doesn't have to work that way. Do you enjoy cycling? Board games? Chess? Knitting? Great -- go out and do those things with other people! Unlike with an online dating checklist, those people probably won't be faking those interests, so you'll actually have something in common.

Mutual activities is a single factor in dating someone. Do they like sex? Do they want children? Do they want a house with a picket fence, or do they want to live nomadically? Do their political interests align with yours? Are they messy, or are they neat freaks? Etc ad nauseam

Question-based dating sites match people on these criteria. That’s impossible to do with someone you meet at a bar.

I haven't been in the online dating game for awhile, but I found the list of checkboxes more useful in theory than in practice. Even when people didn't lie or mislead in their profiles, which they often did, I got a better idea of compatibility from a short in-person meeting than a lengthy written description.

And bars are a terrible place to meet people, unless you want to meet people who enjoy hanging out in bars. Mutual activities often correlate with similar personality traits, and are enjoyable ways to spend time together.

Even worse are the people who suggest going to a club.

> The problem I have with meeting people from "real life" is that they're mostly random people that I usually have little to nothing in common with.

What meeting people in real life means is basically just getting on with your life and doing things that interest you. Like comics? Go to a comic shop. Fascinated by chainmail bikinis? Start spending time at Renaissance Faires - or learn to make them and build a community around yourself. Enjoy mountain biking? Go biking, then go grab coffee or drinks with some other people doing the same. Don't focus on doing these activities to meet potential romantic partners - do them to have fun because you enjoy them and meet other people who enjoy the same things. Don't expect those people to be possible partners, expect them to be friends or acquaintances and to be people through whom you may meet a possible romantic interest.

To quote Ben Carson, "I don't have facts to back this up," but I feel pretty sure that a huge percentage of relationships come from either having some common activity (e.g. "high school," "college," "coworker") or from knowing someone in common (e.g. "friend's brother/sister/other friend").

The one thing I can pretty much guarantee for you is that sitting at home and hoping for a date with an interesting delivery person (or service person if something goes out) is not going to be a successful approach - and if you're that delivery or service person instead, remember that asking out someone whose home or office you've just gone to would be just as creepy as being hit on by the people you've been sent to.

"Don't focus on doing these activities to meet potential romantic partners - do them to have fun because you enjoy them and meet other people who enjoy the same things."

I can't disagree with this enough.

If you want a job, are you going to continue going to the activities you've always been going to and hoping to meet someone that gives you work?

If you want an apartment to live in, are you going to go to the same activities you've been going to and hope that someone there is a landlord?

Maybe you would. But most people would check a jobs site or a rental site. Why would romantic relationships be any different?

> most people would check a jobs site or a rental site. Why would romantic relationships be any different?

That is absolutely a viable approach, and it's one that works for a lot of people. In fact, the two of us have just described "searching for jobs" vs "networking for jobs."

My point though was not so much to do those things to find a partner, but to get out and do things. Part of what you're looking for is not just relationships but (possibly) higher-quality relationships found through people who will vouch for those they're introducing.

For different people "Our matching algorithms say you're an 80% match with this person" vs "Hey, I know someone you should meet" will have different levels of credibility and acceptance.

Jobs and apartment leases are transactions. People don't like to think of their relationships as transactions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35535424 has some stats, and in particular the 'how couples met their romantic partners' graphs. Even back in 2009, for heterosexual couples "through friends" was 30% and falling, with "at a bar/restaurant" and "online" taking up most of the rest and other options including college/coworkers all in steep decline. So I dunno that the stats are entirely behind you, especially if you consider likely changes since 2009. (Maybe there are more recent figures out there.)

I think this has become increasingly infeasible over the past decade due to the rise of social media and internet usage.

People have become very picky with very short attention spans (scroll through feeds, swipe left/right, filter people on dating apps based on very specific attributes, etc).

Also to a large degree "locality" benefits (and limitations) have faded. 10-20 years ago people didn't have access to such a seemingly infinite pool of people. It was more limited to the people around them (people likely to visit the same pubs and coffee shops and events and so on).

I don't think young people today have the patience to "invest" in getting to know random people like that anymore.

Instead of spending days and weeks with someone only to find out that they don't match well together, they go through 300 profiles and talk to 5 of "the best" ones out of that pool.

And often times there's lots of information packed in social media that they can pick up quickly (politics, job, education, culture, etc). It would take much longer to pick up that stuff in organic real world interactions because people don't quiz each other like that.

The one key problem is that if your preferred partner is themselves a homebody with mostly-asocial interests, you’re unlikely to meet them by going out, because they aren’t going out. Meeting people in real life implicitly filters for extroverts (and introverts with a lot of willpower to burn being temporarily social.)

I'm not much of a believer in real life. While I don't know about most people, I never joined hobbies to find a date until I realized I had to get serious about finding someone. Until that point, I just did whatever was most fun. If I was in a badminton league, it was purely because I wanted to play badminton.

So, when I started picking hobbies and going to events based on gender ratio first and fun second, it felt kinda awkward. I figured most people were like what I used to be. If they were in a badminton league, it was probably because they wanted to play badminton, not to get hit on by some guy.

On a dating website, everyone is at least in the same ballpark of expectations. It's straightforward. And, ultimately, it worked. I got engaged after 4 years with a great girl I met on OKC.

> One of the problems with Tinder is its nebulous ethos.

That's a "feature".

It makes it mainstream enough for people to be there without being embarrassed or ashamed.

Then people can turn it into more of a dating thing or a hookup thing as they prefer.

Few people would want to publicly create a profile on "just-here-strictly-for-hookups.com".

That's also why a huge percentage of profiles, especially female ones, insist so strongly that they are not there for hookups. It's a facade and a bit of virtue signalling ("I'm not a slut like those other girls!").

> Is it a dating app or is it a hookup app?

I thought it was a Facebook data mining app.

Yes.

I'm using dating apps for over 10 years now. Dated 3 women via them.

In "real life" I found 12 in that time.

But I still do it, every few years I get some nice surprises :)

3 dates in 10 years? With that kind of yield, I would’ve given up much sooner!

Well, like I said I met about 1.5 women a year and most of them for >1 years so it was okay.

I always had much better luck with online dating. At least on those sites you are reasonably certain they are available and wanting to date and/or hook up with people.

I went to a ton of meetups and group events in real life over the course of three years (and to a lesser extent for years before that), met a lot of women through that, but very few of them were either not in a relationship or emotionally available at the time (either too focused on their career, in an 'it's complicated' situation, going through crap with family, not very financially stable, waiting for their unicorn and would accept nothing less, etc). Many of these women I never saw with anyone or spoke about being with anyone over the course of many years in successive meetups.

To be fair, I was in a similar situation through a good chunk of my 20s when I was either working my butt off for startups or completely broke, so I understand.

But online dating was much less frustrating for me.

I've had similar experiences with group events. It's true that a lot of the women you meet are not available or looking for a relationship, which can be pretty frustrating when you meet someone you really like. So I definitely get you there.

Online dating does separate the wheat from the chaff in that sense, but I still find it more frustrating because there's far more competition I have to deal with and 99% of the time there's no return. When I'm in public with someone I find attractive, there's a high likelihood I can at least strike a conversation with them. Even if nothing comes of it, I gain experience. With online dating, I just get experience updating my profile and sending messages with almost no payoff.

It definitely works for some people. My best friend met his fiance on OKCupid years ago, and I've gotten multiple dates through it in the past, so I know that it can work. Whether the online dating sphere still functions properly is a different question, considering my online dating success decreased while my situation in life drastically improved, which makes no sense to me.

I'll add that I'm not particularly bothered by any of this. As you were in your 20s, I am at a stage where the benefits of dating don't outweigh the benefits of focusing on my craft until I can reach a certain threshold.

My girlfriend I've been with for the past two and a half years I met through OKCupid as well. Honestly OKCupid is the only site I've ever had any luck with for online dating, the rest have been pretty much useless.

> I went to a ton of meetups and group events in real life over the course of three years (and to a lesser extent for years before that), met a lot of women through that, but very few of them were either not in a relationship or emotionally available at the time

Don't go to events and activities looking for love. Go to events and activities looking for interesting people to get to know and be friends with - and let them be a filter of "Hey, I know someone you should meet" when they know you're single. Similarly, if you have friends who've never met but who are single and have similar interests, don't be afraid to introduce them to each other.

It wasn't specifically looking for love, I was mainly trying to get out of my shell and meet more people. I made a ton of friends from it, more than I can keep up with, and some of my closest friends today came from that period of time, so it was still very valuable. But I was also hoping it would help my dating prospects and it didn't seem to help much with that.

Do some of the people you've met that way know you're single and looking? There may even be 1-2 people that strike you as "this person knows everyone" or even "I think X hangs out with the kind of people I'd like to meet."

I'm not actually single and looking anymore. I've been dating my current girlfriend for the past two and a half years, who I met on OKCupid. Also I was sorta kinda that 'person who knows everyone', or at least as much as anyone was. I went to a lot of meetups across many different groups that interested me. I ended up being the organizer for one of them.

As almost average looking guy living in Baltimore I found Match.com to be the best dating app and worth the money. I at least had one date a month with average looking women. POF was 2nd while Eharmony was the worst.

Though in 2010 to about 2014 Christian Mingle was the best as there weren't many guys on it and I dated a dozen average to attractive looking women in a few months. Not many use it like before as they didnt jump to mobile quick enough.

I got married to someone I met on match, been married for 10 years. My coz is in a long term relationship with someone he met on tinder. Your mileage may vary...

For my wife and I, it was OKCupid where we met. Been together over 7 years, married over 5 of them (all in a row).

It is a hookup app. Tinder can't say that as it gives users not plausible deniability and feel shallow. Very smart on Tinder's side!

Data point of 1: probably 70% of the people I match with on bumble initiate a conversation. I think I'm slightly above average in terms of attractiveness

It's a hookup app.

i would advise against meetup.com for most people depending on your city. It's filled with 45+ year year olds. Among the younger meetups, its going to 9 guys - 1 girl ratio. The guys are typically all out-of-shape and awkward nerdy types and the the one girl will be similar to them too.