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Are you sure facebook is the right app though? They obviously have a large user base, but is facebook really being used anymore?

This is anecdotal, but everyone in my social circle is considering quitting facebook. They stick around for the same reason I am, because events are planned on facebook, because everyone is there.

No one really uses the wall though, and messenger completely died when it started forcing you to use it on mobile and people simply started using other message services because half their friends wouldn't respond until they were at computers.

That's not to say facebook the company is struggling. The wall has moved to instagram and a lot of people obviously use watsapp, but facebook itself is almost exclusively a better meetup.

Maybe this is different in the US, and it's certainly anecdotal, but it's the story I hear everywhere.

The user base is big, like you've said, and that means facebook has better potential than almost everyone else, I'll agree with you there, at least in theory. I just don't think Facebook is really a company with enough vision to disrupt online dating. If they were, they probably wouldn't still be trying to push facebook as their core product, and certainly not at the expense of their new apps that people actually like. I mean, it feels like the world is moving on, and Facebook isn't realising it, maybe because of their company name, but it just feels like they don't have the or any vision anymore.

Facebook is still being used, the majority of users are between 18 to 44 as can be seen on statista thru google search. However there is basically no young people. Having this dating feature kind of matches with their adult demographic who likely can pay. After all fb is dying with no young people signing up in North America, its gotta find a way out. Note that around the world but not North America and Europe there are still many young people signing up for FB.

> the majority of users are between 18 to 44

Yes but what kind of people? The only young people I see on facebook are married couples and kids.

Not exactly the prime dating demographic.

I'm pretty sure Facebook users aren't more married than the average person. And kids aren't really on Facebook, not sure where you got that impression from.

By kids I mean parents posting photos of kids.

So, your friends list consists of married couples and kids. How are you confusing that with the overall demographics of Facebook?

I mean, you kind of answered the question yourself, "considering quitting facebook. [but] They stick around"

And then goes on to say: because everyone is there and but it just feels like they don't have the or [sic] any vision anymore.

I spend 4-6 months at a time without logging in. I don't delete my facebook because I used as a kind of blog for years and don't want to delete all that content yet.

There's a difference between having an account and using it.

I mean, I had a google+ account since the early days, but I used it about as much as I use facebook now.

Anecdote - I don't know literally anyone who doesn't use Facebook, including my grandmother.

Do you interact on the wall or in messenger?

Both, plus Groups and Events - groups are actually a huge major contributor to the development of shared economics in our country, a lot of people stick around because they want to participate in the hundreds of various interesting and well moderated groups (local food, housing, cars, ...) that are available in our language - I tried to find similar ones in English or other languages but failed. There are a few, but nothing comparable, discussion quality is usually much worse and ads are scam.

Hi, non-Facebook user here :)

Literally half of all Americans actively use either FB or IG at least once a day, as of Q3 ending.

Also worldwide they have 2.27 billion monthly active users. Which is roughly a third of the human race.

I actually don‘t believe those numbers without an independent audit.

It's ok. You aren't responsible for the go-no-go decision on this dating feature, so you don't need to believe the numbers.

Just stand in a subway and see what apps people are using. I’m in Southeast Asia and it’s Facebook or Line all the time. I almost never use it myself any lots of friends don’t either but these things will be correlated with my own preferences by nature. I also don’t read tabloids or watch reality tv but I know people on aggregate consume those a bunch.

At some point in the month those accounts make some kind of connection with Facebook’s auth system. Those accounts are almost certainly not 1:1 with people.

The real usage of Facebook is probably a fraction of that number. They have huge incentives to mislead about those figures.

A much better stat would be the number of individual people (eliminating known duplicates and businesses) who post an original post to their timeline each day, each week, and each month. Facebook don’t post those figures because they would be pretty darn low.

My entire social life lives in Facebook Messenger. Maybe Messenger is dead in your social circle, but certainly not in mine. The Wall is dead though.

> messenger completely died when it started forcing you to use it on mobile and people simply started using other message services because half their friends wouldn't respond until they were at computers.

To counter this with my own personal anecdote, in my social circles this is not true at all, and messenger has become even more of the messaging standard in recent times.

A second anecdote, every single communication for me is over FB messenger or iMessage. I occasionally get SMS messages but I refuse to use SMS long-term with my android friends, you just miss out on too many features.

What features do you miss out on by using SMS?

Read receipts, typing indicators, delivery receipts, unlimited message size (text), better sending of media files and links to websites like previews)

Plus I believe SMS is not free, so you never used it as much

Encryption, authentication, delivery notifications, read receipts, typing indicators, group messaging, hyperlink previews, third party app integrations, (some) emojis, etc.

The experience of using SMS is spartan and incomparable to modern messaging applications like iMessage, Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger.

All Unicode emoji work in SMS, fwiw.

MMS is hit or miss on WiFi too. (Yeah I don't have signal in my apartment.)

Plus, if you lose your phone and you don't have your SMS msgs backed up, they are lost forever pretty much. With messenger, because they are not device dependent, they are still there. You can access them from any device (mobile or desktop) which is connected to the net.

I haven't used an SMS in ages...can't even remember the last time I texted or received one.

Definitely. There are many friends and family members whose phone numbers I’ve lost track of I can easily contact via messenger. That’s amazingly useful.

One example where Facebook is not just useful, but essential: crisis response. For example the butte county fire today.

In what way is Facebook essential in this situation?

To see if friends and family are safe.

How is that essential? What are you going to do about it from wherever your remote location is?

Stress reduction.

The people I immediately care about being safe are people I can and will contact directly outside of Facebook. Everyone else, I’ll find out about eventually.

It's a stretch to call Facebook _essential_. If you're worrying about someone, pick up the phone. Using Facebook has its own heavy costs.

How do you keep track of the people -> current location mapping in your head? Are you going to suggest keeping a notebook for that?

I know where people live. I have a contacts list on my computer with phone numbers and email addresses. I don't use Facebook, WhatsApp, or any of those sites. There is a price for knowing exactly where everyone is at all times.

https://www.wired.com/story/our-minds-have-been-hijacked-by-...

There is also a price for knowing phone numbers and email addresses.

You can arguably do much more harm by utilizing a phone number and email address, compared to knowing which city someone lives in.

I don't see how, but if you feel so strongly about it you could put those cities in your address book as well.

It's still a huge stretch to call facebook essential. A growing number of peers and myself don't facebook, yet I don't know of anyone who has lost their home, job, and gone hungry because of it.

My social life and productivity have greatly improved since I quit Facebook. I also started to read more books, because my general concentration is returning.

Every time you read an algorithmic news feed, ask yourself, "is this more educational than reading a great book?" The answer will nearly always be no.

I'm referring to the huge cost of Facebook in productivity and cognitive functioning.

I don't think there is a price for knowing phone numbers and email addresses. It's much more harmful for Facebook to have my data than for people who I care about to have my phone number or email address. (My email addresses are public anyway.)

I find that feature of Facebook pretty distasteful. Someone at Facebook said “how can we use natural disasters and terrorist attacks to boost our engagement figures?”

Plenty of people use facebook for the marketplace, I can see how a lot of them would use facebook for dating.

Five out of your seven arguments are directly or indirectly linked to safety. This post right here is something Dating App entrepreneurs should take a note of.

To play devils advocate :

>Dating apps live and die by their userbase so we're already doing pretty good there.

The only people on facebook are boomers arguing about politics. Dating is all about exclusivity and compartmentalization. Nobody wants to date in the same place they get happy birthday messages from their grandma.

>Using the social graph for matches is brilliant

Nobody wants to see their friend of friends on a dating site. Tinder tried this already and it bombed. The current meta for dating apps is to exclude anyone in your contacts or friendlists.

>More than any other dating platform they have the tools to combat bots and fakes at scale.

This is largely self-policing. Bots are in neither sides best interest so they get reported and removed quickly.

>Facebook has huge potential to make dating safer by knowing when you're together detecting suspicious activity

I barely want facebook to know my name, let alone when and where I'm on a first date. This, again, is largely self-policing. Meet in public places. Make sure your date passes the sniff-test. Yes there are bad actors out there, but there is also personal responsibility.

As for picture messages and data. I don't trust any company and its probably best to keep data from being centralized as best as possible. But that's just my opinion.

> Nobody wants to see their friend of friends on a dating site. Tinder tried this already and it bombed. The current meta for dating apps is to exclude anyone in your contacts or friendlists.

If you exclude your contacts and friend lists and exclude friend of friends, who does that leave? Friends of friends of friends? Complete strangers? I wonder what proportion of couples knew each other directly or indirectly before they got together: "Oh, you know Jack! Yeah, he's by father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate!"

Obviously I have no hard data, but it's not too difficult to imagine that couples come together with all sorts of varying prior knowledge of each other's existence.

That the current meta is this, doesn't mean that is the most successful strategy for all people at all times.

I think dating apps suffer from the public health policy vs. individualised medicine paradox: what might be good policy for people en masse might be terrible advice for any particular individual.

> I wonder what proportion of couples knew each other directly or indirectly before they go together:

A good proportion I bet, but they didn't meet on a dating app.

Dating apps are used by people trying to "catch other fish in the sea". They want to expand their selection to social groups outside their immediate one, and date in a way that doesn't impact their status within their current group. If all your friends know Jack, and you dump him, word will get around for better or worse.

Oh, I see now a thought-filter I was applying when I wrote my previous comment.

I live in Tasmania, the whole island has a population of about 512,000. If you exclude friends of friends of friends, that's pretty much everyone here.

Still, Australia's top 5 cities have about 64% of the population. If you live in any of the non-top-five and exclude friends of friends of friends, that's a fair chunk of the locals.

You're making the case for why people don't want to match with their immediate friends, but there's a lot of value in matching with people just one degree of separation away, through a mutual friendship. After all, that's how a lot of dating already goes down in real life.

Your Jack example is true if you and Jack share a considerable amount of mutual friends. But almost all the people I meet on Tinder only have a couple mutual friends with me, no more. Often just one. Any sort of failures in our relationship don't have that much reach, yet I still have benefits like being able to query my mutual friend about that person, or leverage them in some other way like having them invite us both to an event to get the ball rolling.

> Friends of friends of friends? Complete strangers?

That's how it's supposed to work. lol But I guess the likes of Facebook among other social pressures has changed all of that.

I'm so glad I gave up on dating.

Why is that how it's "supposed" to work? Most couples I know met IRL, and from a close circle (direct friends/coworkers or friends-of-friends at most). I'm not sure I know any couples who were complete strangers before dating.

People tend to use dating websites/apps because they want to find someone _different_. People tend to have friends that are like them, but that is not always what you want in a relationship.

Centralization of data aside, playing non-devils advocate:

> The only people on facebook are boomers arguing about politics. Dating is all about exclusivity and compartmentalization. Nobody wants to date in the same place they get happy birthday messages from their grandma.

The Facebook you see is very different from the Facebook I see (which is the point I guess).

> Nobody wants to see their friend of friends on a dating site. Tinder tried this already and it bombed. The current meta for dating apps is to exclude anyone in your contacts or friendlists.

I think it depends on what we mean by "dating" and who we're talking about.

Dudes on Tinder and Grindr (hookups), sure, that could be awkward. I know people who opt for other apps because they're not trying to get laid, but rather want to find someone who they can form an actual meaningful connection with. In this case friend of friends are great. As OP mentioned, safety is also worth considering and something disproportionately worrying women: meeting people integrated in your near social graph keeps you safe both physically and emotionally.

Same here. I'd rather not online date someone from my social circle. Sure, if it happens with someone I know offline, it will happen. But I don't want to turn FB into a pseudo-dating site as well. There's too much personal info on there for that kind of stuff. Plus scope for waaay too much drama, if things go south.

I disagree with your assertion that "Strongly connecting dating with IRL identity is basically mandatory for safety."

Strongly connecting anything with your IRL identity is a recipe for doxxing and stalking.

I think Facebook's biggest challenge with their dating platform will be convincing women that they will both get good matches and be able to stay safe on the platform.

Sex workers have a screening process that demands your IRL identity for safety.

Turns out doxxing/stalking can always happen, but knowing someone's identity still makes you safer. For one, it gives you recourse. In Facebook's case, it also gives people social proof and precisely helps avoid the sort of troglodyte that's going to stalk you. When I see that I have mutual friends with someone on Tinder, I certainly have asked my mutual friend about that person just like you would do when dating through your existing friends, like that woman you met at your friend's dinner party.

Also, most dating in human history has happened through immediate social channels where you know someone's identity. I don't see what alternative you're proposing except blind dating with strangers with zero social proof. Yeah, women aren't going to do that for safety concerns.

> Sex workers have a screening process that demands your IRL identity for safety.

This is one-way only though. I'm sure sex workers do not want their IRL identity out in the world.

While this is "true", this is already happening. In the vast majority of cases, your match's Facebook profile will both be there and have some public information. Also, a huge amount of the lack of safety from potentially fake profiles can be addressed more systematically and in a more scalable way.

I don't see as much negative behaviour from people in Facebook, as I do in online platforms which are anonymous.

Maybe it's just my friends aren't a meaningful sample of people, or maybe it's that-- since you connect with your friends and a lot of people you know IRL, it's less common that these are people you'd hurt with impunity.

I manage online communities, and I saw many people behaving terribly on Facebook. Some people who were polite and well behaved under a pseudonym on my communities would become very unpleasant people when posting under their real names on Facebook. Many Facebook groups are toxic.

Communities aren't well behaved based on real names -- they are well behaved based on the culture that is created by the moderators.

> * Dating apps necessarily collect a lot of user information, there isn't much way around it, and for all their faults Facebook has way more experience than anyone else in protecting it.

Isn't Facebook famous for NOT protecting it? How is any other dating company worse?

I agree on most of the points you raised except this one:

> * More than any other dating platform they have the tools to combat bots and fakes at scale.

I'm not sure this is true. Bots and fakes are still a huge issue on Facebook. They might have more money to pour into the finding the solution, but doesn't mean they have a good one yet

> * Facebook has huge potential to make dating safer by knowing when you're together detecting suspicious activity. Integrating their crisis response system would be a game changer.

I didn't realize online dating is so unsafe that this would be a "game changer." Online dating is already safer than (for example) meeting some random person at a bar or party, assuming you first meet the person in public which is an obvious thing to do. Presumably you've exchanged phone numbers or have some kind of identity of the person you're going out with, should you go missing, people know who to look for. I suppose the contact info they're giving you could be faked, and they could be using Tor the entire time, but I'd say someone nefarious like that is far more likely to be picking up drunk people at bars who aren't even paying attention and not even thinking in that direction.

> Online dating is already safer than (for example) meeting some random person at a bar or party, assuming you first meet the person in public which is an obvious thing to do.

This is not necessarily true. I've been harassed by people who I've talked to online who have never even progressed to the meeting stage (we talk a little bit, I determine I'm not interested, a meeting never happens). They'll create fake accounts, message from their friends' accounts, etc. because some people don't know how to take no for an answer. People are a lot more willing to harass behind anonymity than to stalk people in person, because the bar and the resulting consequences are so much lower. Plus it's a lot easier to screen people in person than it is to assess potentially fake profiles.

That being said, I don't think that Facebook dating is the answer to this.

Most of your points are about safety and that's a concern many have. I'm curious though, do we know how big of a problem it actually is? What's the probability of an online date being unsafe vs a bar date?

How much of it is rational vs irrational fear. Is it more likely you'll get hurt driving on the way to the date?

FB has a few other things it can bring to the table, too. Assuming reasonable user engagement on the platform:

-They can match people with similar interests, or similar friend groups (or test the hypothesis that opposites attract).

-They can recommend good places for (individual or group) dates (with advertisers offering discounts).

-They could remind you when your anniversary or your SO has a birthday coming up and recommend gifts and locations.

-Also, it's actually one area where advertisers and FB users can actually be aligned. If you're just looking for casual dates, you could be recommended new clothes, grooming services, bed sheets (haha), or other things. If you're in a relationship, they could recommend occasional gifts that your SO might like, or restaurants.

Plus, they have a ton of experience with combatting harassment. The more I talk about this, the more I think they have a good shot of getting this to work.

"They could remind you when your anniversary or your SO has a birthday coming up and recommend gifts and locations."

I don't see how that's a relevant capability for dating.

You're not supposed to be dating lots of people at the same time, so you should be able to keep track. Furthermore, these dates should not last more than mere weeks in practice, otherwise you can be sure someone is sitting in your seat.

Let's be honest, if your date hasn't let you know about her upcoming birthday, then it means you're not invited.

It’s relevant because the whole point of the service, clearly stated, is long-term relationships. My point is that not only can they help you out with the initial matchmaking, but they could also help you maintain your relationship. Other products like tinder/bumble/etc are standalone and have to maximize engagement even after their initial matchmaking, but FB does not.

Well I’m not sure about all of that stuff, but Facebook is definitely going to be able to monetize the ad inventory a lot better than Match Group. Dating app behavior doesn’t look much different to me than people obsessively viewing a Facebook or Instagram feed.

> Good on them for removing picture messages, I can't say I'm ever happy to receive unsolicited dick pics.

Why? Unsolicited dick pics is the easiest way to weed out the creeps.

Maybe the'll weed themselves out if the feature is not there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm sure FB has the technical ability to automatically detect dick pics with IR. They should let that in, blurry it and flag it.

Then you decide what to do with it, like blocking the sender.... or share the picture to his own wall :)

Dating apps are more directed towards younger generations ( Millennials, Generation Z) and if you look at recent use those generations seem to be dropping Facebook.

I can't really imagine setting up a date with someone on the social network used by my parents and theirs.

  they have the tools to combat bots

You mean they have tools to combat bots that they don't bother using on their main site?

Didn't Facebook apps used to include dating apps that would use your social graph?

So, can we also have a useful discussion about the evils of this?

I think the idea was for this thread to exclude that - but launch a new, separate thread if you want.

You don't need to expressly define all cases in an `else` block.

Facebook already has a dating app, it's Instagram.

>> Dating apps live and die by their userbase

No. Dating "apps" live and die by their customers. The bulk of the dating app industry is powered by bots, false accounts and professional "trainers". Some are real, but the majority of the industry is a scam.

I don't understand. Bots aren't that big of a deal, and it's not unlike encountering a woman who doesn't want to meet up: you find out very quickly and you move on.

Until bots are going on dates and sleeping with you, I don't see how online dating is "powered by bots." You glaze over them the same way you ignore a spam post on a forum.

https://www.scambusters.org/chatbot.html

>>“Chatbots” — computer programs that use artificial intelligence to strike up conversations with dating site users — enable scammers to “talk” with multiple potential victims at once. They’re particularly active on the Tinder dating app, which employs users’ locations and Facebook profiles to try to link them with nearby online romance seekers.

The big takeaway from the Ashley Madison hack was that nobody was actually having any affairs. All those men were paying for a dream. There were next to zero real women on the site. It was all bots and fake accounts. And that company, ironically a Canadian company, was being called a potential pre-IPO unicorn.

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. That article even enumerates the trivial ways in which you can detect these scams.

Is email "powered by bots" because spam/phishing/scams happen there, too? Seems like a worthless distinction to me. What about in real life when someone scams you by asking for bus money but they didn't actually need it for the bus? Hell, maybe you even have to mess up a few times before you learn. So what?

It's pretty easy to evaluate the utility of a dating service: are you actually meeting people? That's not something bots can fake, yet.

Have you actually used Tinder and found yourself talking to a bot enough times for it to challenge your entire objective? Because I have a very hard time believing that just like I doubt you've fallen for an adultfriendfinder "girls in your area" advertisement more than once.

Some live, human women on dating apps even ask you to Venmo them some money. Well, you unmatch with them and move on. No dating app can give you an unending consecutive succession of mates that will blossom into an in-person meet-up and then a relationship. Real life can't give you that, either. You already have to deal with the interactions that fizzle out, whether it's someone who never even responded to you, a chat bot that drops you an adultfriendfinder link, or someone you ended up not clicking with after all. That's life.