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Comment by teirce | Hacker News Reader

I feel like I hear more random success stories on OkCupid than anywhere else. It seems the commitment of swiping on <insert any of 20 apps here> is really thin. Not to mention that most people probably aren't looking to marry (or even date) someone from Tinder.

I'm curious about your experience. Do you feel that anything in particular made OkCupid more successful for you? I feel that the level of information / detail in profiles might help for a more successful match, but I haven't put in any time on the platform myself.

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I met my current dating partner on OKcupid a couple years ago. I've tried Tinder and while I've had more matches on there, and got more dates from it (before I got serious with this girl), I think OKC is better for finding compatible people for the reasons you name: there's simply a lot more information and detail in the profiles. OKC makes it easy to weed out people who have incompatibilities because you can see this stuff in the profiles in also in the answers to the many questions. The only problem with OKC in my view is that Tinder and similar low-information phone apps have basically taken over, so it seems like the traditional sites like OKC are basically dying out from lack of users. Just like any social network, these sites depend on a "critical mass" of users to work well.

Maybe the audience for this was always smaller, but the niche of "find people who share interests with you" is under explored. FB cornered the social network market, but it was always deliberately the opposite of this: you only add people you already know.

I used to be a part of a social network which had more of an open-world policy, and I miss it.

Well, there is meetup.com for that: it's all about local groups organized around common interests. It's not meant for dating specifically (though there are singles' groups), but many people do say a good way to meet dating partners is to attend events that you have an interest in so you might meet someone who shares that interest.

Online dating is just 90% random chance that both parties will be compatible, which is why quick swipe apps are so popular now (and what OKC has recently transitioned to as well). It allows for a greater throughput of matches, so you can eventually boil it down faster.

I think the more detailed profile of OKC has always been very helpful conversationally, but really that's about it. I think the greater fraction of successful OKC dates is simply a result of it being around longer.

My wife and I met on OKCupid, although that was seven years ago. It was a fine platform then, for finding non-monetary compatibility.

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