An app that limits technology in online dating
singlespotapp.com
singlespotapp.com
It is exactly my complain with dating apps: They shifted most of the dating scene online in a predefined "boring flow". It is unfortunately extremely rare nowadays that people approach each other in real life. I think there is a couple reason why that became the way it is:
- Online dating app wide acceptance made it in such a way that it became the "expected flow" through which dating occurs.
- Trying to approach people offline is now seen as more and more awkward since less and less people do it.
- I also feel like the whole #MeToo and political climate makes it more difficult to approach people of the opposite gender as more people are now worried that it could be wrongly seen as sexual harassment.
I feel like nowadays, because it is so much easier (but fake) online, most people simply gave up all tentative of approaching//being approached in real life.
I mean meeting people in real life still happens, but it is getting more and more rare//isolated and awkward unfortunately. I guess we live in a society where everything needs to have a well defined flow and be well codified.
I get the safety aspect of it, and I get fact it's an easy way to cut down on a lot of toxicity, but it's a shortcut that's fundamentally antithetical to equality in the long run.
There's likely a way to maintain the same level of safety for everyone, but I suspect it'd involve a lot more effort on behalf of the platform.
Algorithms make assumptions that are often wrong, and if the platform is prevalent enough, you're effectively forced to submit to it since everyone else does.
Worse yet, some platforms will actively prohibit creating a new account, so you effectively end up tied to the worth placed on you by a proprietary algorithm.
Still, who you're shown to and how often is very much algorithmic on existing platforms. People with high rankings are typically shown first and thus get a disproportionate amount of attention.
For the system you describe to work equitably (setting aside one gender swipes first), you would need to be shown in non-ranked fashion to users. Major platforms generally don't do that right now for a myriad of reasons which include supply/demand realities, user retention, and straight up greed.
I agree though, there's ways to do this that still retain safety. Something along the lines of public key cryptography for dating. :)
Doesn't that just lead to a huge surplus of women all competing to date the top 10-20% of guys?
Bumble-like, ie. the women can choose who sees them
It now sounds like Bumble does let men see women's profiles and even send a kind of "wave" to women who haven't given them the green flag. That's a lot different because it actually gives men who have just joined the site something to do rather than a blank page with no women (because nobody has allowed them to see anyone yet).
Never gonna happen. Or more realistically, not going to happen in large enough numbers to consider as a possible scenario.
Needless to say, it's a great idea. Just don't buy into more complicated dating models that ruin everything or let yourselves become another brick in the wall of the online dating monopoly.
Perhaps the kinds of online daters that aren't superficial attention-seekers don't end up earning very much money for the companies.
Tinder-style hookup apps don't have this problem, at least to the same degree.
- Remove any features cloned from Tinder.
- Every major city would have a small office where singles can go to set up their profile and have a set of professional photos taken. Users can add other photos online, but their avatar has to be the one taken at the office. This would also help prevent fake profiles.
- Users will only visible or come up in search results if they are online, or by those they have replied to in PM.
- If a user doesn't go on any dates in 60 days, they are kicked off and have to go to their local office to get their account reinstated. (I'm most iffy on this one)
- Get rid of any existing compatibility profiling. No surveys. No "sex drive higher than average", or "less adventurous". All of that is horseshit.
[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NetworkDecay
Which is also why this won't be successful. Female users overwhelmingly prefer the current state of dating apps for various reasons that I won't get into here.
Ryan's profile contains fake pictures of him allowing him to check in and see who's in there without exposing himself.
Ryan notices one of the single women that checked in and proceeds to watch her all night as she gets dangerously intoxicated.
Ryan follows her and makes his move.
Specially, Ryan might view the interaction he had, despite being under false pretense, as a legitimate personal connection to the individual. i.e. the online checkin might be a trigger for stalking behavior that simply being in the same physical presence might not be.
I mean, maybe this isn't a big deal. But I do think it could potentially be different.
This part is not enabled or disabled by a dating app. Ryan can do the same thing by hanging around bars and following their patrons around. I do think, though, that the problem is that some men seem to develop unhealthy obsessions with pictures of women they haven't yet met, and that stalkers will definitely spring from this app if it gains traction.
The right growth strategy here seems a lot more localized - targeting specific bars/nightlife districts and seeding from the ground up. Can't get any useful signal from 10,000 users if they're all spread out across North America.
I say that after seeing this app promoted on HN a few times now - probably not a super effective growth channel.
That said, Match Group has a veritable monopoly in online dating right now as a direct result of a myriad of unethical behaviors: manipulation and subsequent monetization of people's self-esteem for profit, algorithm design that effectively demands broad appeal which in turn marginalizes certain LGBTQ groups.
The list continues, but for the sake of a healthy society I really hope someone figures out how to crush Tinder and all its clones soon.