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> messages only after likes (it changes the dynamics a lot; before I got much more interesting discussions)

I believe the idea is to reduce to number of messages women receive from guys they have no interest in. This benefits guys as they are less likely to spend time composing a long message that is wasted. More generally, you want to encourage a dynamic where there is a progressive ladder of investment sizes by each party, so that no one makes a large unilateral investement.

I have never used an online dating app, but I have to imagine that requiring mutual likes based on a public profile eliminates the strategy of guys who have a really good pitch tailored to a specific woman. They have only one public blurb and a picture, so I could imagine it devolving to a filter that only selects for profile pictures in practice.

Not saying that’s not worth the trafeoff though, I don’t have a better idea to fight spam.

I sort of agree, although I'm skeptical of how prevalent it ever really was for a guy to make an unsolicited pitch tailored to the woman that was accepted even though the woman would have declined based only on his profile. After all, women look at the profile when they receive and unsolicited messages, often before they even bother to read the message (especially the long ones).

I can only speak from personal experience, but all my messages are tailored. When I do get a reply, I'd say only around 50% of women look at my profile before replying. For the rest, the message is good enough to get started.

> I can only speak from personal experience, but all my messages are tailored.

It's clear that all messages need to be tailored to expect a reasonable reply rate; otherwise the woman has no way to tell you've put in any effort (so it might be copypasta spam). That doesn't mean that women are replying to unsolicited messages from men who they wouldn't even swipe right on.

> I'd say only around 50% of women look at my profile before replying.

How do you know? What app are you talking about? I estimate that >95% of women on mainstream apps look at a guy's profile before replying to a message.

Before the change, I sometimes got responses and even a first message or two on OKCupid (!). Since the change, nothing, zilch on the site.

    requires real first name (bad if you name is too common or too rare; also, it was cool and a great discussion starter)

That is not true, https://help.okcupid.com/article/67-how-to-change-your-name :

    We ask that you use your first name instead of a username,
    but if you're not comfortable showing your first name,
    feel free to use initials or a nickname,
    as long as it's something you're comfortable having your date call you!

Edit: (See other posting in sub-thread)

Also:

   messages only after likes (it changes the dynamics a lot; before I got much more interesting discussions)

I don't think this is a good argument for "tinderification". There were so many people (mostly men) harassing other people (mostly women) on OkCupid. I think this was a proper measurement to reduce unwelcome messages.

https://twitter.com/OKCupidmen

https://shitguyssayonokcupid2.tumblr.com/

Well, it is possible to fake a name. Still, real names became the default and it changes the global landscape (and a few exceptions, even if allowed, don't change that very much).

> There were so many people (mostly men) harassing other people (mostly women) on OkCupid. I think this was a proper measurement to reduce unwelcome messages.

It is a big problem. Yet, as I said - there are simpler ways to go. E.g. just introducing rating for anything rude, and filtering out plain "Hi"s.

Now the problem is that to see a message a women needs to like a profile. Superficial features say little about if a person is going to be nice or abusive; certainly, much less than the content of the first message. (See the Reddit post I linked.)

And for me personally (men dating women), the quality of interactions, felt drastically. (Apparently, my first messages were inviting enough.) Plus, crucially, if "like first", then why not Tinder?

> There were so many people (mostly men) harassing other people (mostly women) on OkCupid.

I haven't been on in years but I remember when they handed out moderator rights to users. Somehow I got them and could review the flagged messages queues, agree/disagree with flags, and drop notes to other mods.

There seemed to be an equal mix of absolutely batshit crazy men, and women who reported every message they received from someone beneath them.

I feel like the "only message after shared likes" was implemented to address the later primarily.

When they got purchased by the big conglomerate that owns all the other dating sites, they got gutted and brought into the fold.

Competitors in a market have a tendency to converge on a common offering, which serves as a Nash equilibrium. See for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facility_location_(competiti...

I messaged an OKC employee on OKC about this once and she denied (b). My guess is they wanted to "improve engagement" or something.