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Comment by AgloeDreams | Hacker News Reader

"My idea of a dating app: Literally enforces class based social ranking"

It really doesn't take much to realize that this pricing scheme would exclusively benefit the rich and white, right?

Like for a successful, white, male, software engineer like myself I could afford to reach out to whomever I would like anytime I want, this would be heaven! But for someone in a worse social position they would be basically blocked from talking to more than one person, regardless of their looks, personality, or ambitions.

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Where did “white” come into it? I can see how such a system would benefit the rich, but would it benefit a rich white more than a rich black? No. Why are you bringing race into it?

Whites are favored on dating apps (e.g. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3244459) and the model proposed would make that division pretty explicit

how would it make the division explicit? Be specific. How would the pay to play messaging system benefit a rich white more than a rich black?

That’s the very specific point we are discussing, and my claim is that race is irrelevant in this discussion. If you have evidence to the contrary on exactly that point then I’d like to hear it.

Not some hand wavy vague generalisation on a tangential point, how would a pay to play messaging system benefit a rich white more than a rich black?

I don't think a rich white would be benefited more than a rich black in terms of sending messages on an individual level. (After all - if net worth is the same then a $ is a $) However - the part where they're responded to would be favored to a rich white instead of a rich black... but I don't think that would be any different than a non-pay system. And that's not correlated to rich white vs rich black - that's correlated with white vs black. :/

However, one could start arguing that because there are more rich white people than rich black people then the system favors whites more because whites hold more money to message people. Therefore, because of that, then the people who are messaging the most desirable will more likely be white (even if split of race in the country was 50/50 white/black - whites will be messaging more because their wealth on average is higher).

I don't think such a pay to message system should exist (even though many dating apps do implement a roundabout way of doing this - lol - they all implement some throttling mechanism that you can get around if you pay $$$).

I know, and I know. I was calling him on the “Rich white guy” racist trite.

This is hilarious.

Because white people are more wealthy than those of other races. That is a hardcore socioeconomic fact in the US. In pure mean and quantity.

Soounds like OP just wants to formalize the existing process. Dating is expensive!

maybe its cuz i live in the country and not silicon valley, but my last date was a walk which cost nothing :) our second date we made a dinner together which also cost roughly nothing. we just like each other's company <3

That doesn't mean they're not expensive in other ways - It's enjoyable, but actively dating can be both emotionally taxing and just time-consuming, especially in the initial stages when you're working out if you like someone, or just looking for someone at all.

Not always. People find inventive ways of going on interesting dates. It will certainly put off those who are looking for someone who likes to spend money on them, but that’s an additional benefit.

How is that any different than current dating reality? White rich males (and females) are the cream of the crop on dating systems. Attractiveness is another huge driver, as a derivative of the prior two attributes combined with other more subtle ones.

This idea is simply an admittance of what we're all already collectively doing. Only difference is the blame is centralized to the app, versus spread out to each user.

If you don't believe me, take a look at statistics on dating app success for unattractive minorities versus the aforementioned "cream of the crop". We're all pretty blatantly <something>-ist when it comes to dating.

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