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Comment by skocznymroczny | Hacker News Reader

OKCupid also charges men, especially more than women for their premium service. It's common on online dating apps.

Not much different than real life... in many clubs women can go inside for free while men have to pay entry ticket fee.

The fact that is common doesn't make it right.

There is no right/wrong here, Tinder is a business, not a public square or a public service, you choose willingly to use their service so they can charge whatever they want, nobody is forcing you to use it.

Just like in a night club or country club, the house is free to set whichever memebership rules it wants, if you don't like them you are free to go somewhere else.

Unlike the jobs market, the dating market and its (discriminatory) dynamics is not something the government could regulate.

> There is no right/wrong here

Discrimination law strongly disagrees with you.

I believe this specific theory was tried, and rejected, by that lawyer who shot the husband and son of that federal judge.

http://www.roydenhollander.com/main/ladiesnightdc/LN_OrigCmp...

If it was employment, would you hold them to the same standard? They too are businesses after all; by your logic, they get to pay you more or less depending on factors like gender, age, etc.

You're applying this corporate-libertarian ideal to this situation but only a small change to your statement undermines it.

How do you feel about universities being more strict towards particular ethnicities?

So basically, if they get woke, they go broke.

So, it is not okay to discriminate by age at a public square?

But, why would Tinder control a public square?

So are you fine with a service that charges black people more? Or a private company that decides not to hire gays? They're both not public squares or services, right?

Not op, but I'll counter with the question: how do you feel about public universities discriminating based on race and sex, which they do

No op either, but negatively, too. Why on earth would think that that make it all ok?

Because publicly funded universities hold different ethnicities to different standards which favor particular underrepresented groups simply due to their group identity rather than to a consistent, objective standards.

I asked because the response to that question helps me understand w the point of view one is coming from

They're not suggesting that another injustice might not exist in higher education, more that it has nothing to do with the hypothetical of a dating app charging more based on race.

Just because there's publicly funded precedent, doesn't mean it's not something that should be tackled and fixed.

This practice only works if companies keep paying male workers more, since essentially this is getting males to pay for those services keeping the lights on. The beneficiaries probably won’t complain since they pay less, but charging guys more is an inherently sexist practice which only makes sense continuing in a world with sexist salary and compensation practices.

> This practice only works if companies keep paying male workers more

Huh? That is completely unrelated to why this is done.

My issue with this is that these decisions aren't necessarily being made because of operating costs. It doesn't cost more to host a man than a woman.

Having too many men can impact the experience women have, and if they leave then the entire platform collapses. The cost to "host" a user is the same regardless of gender but platforms like these work only if the gender ratio is at least somewhat balanced - the fee seems to help with that, just like it does in a physical club(where it also doesn't cost any more to host a man than it does a woman).

Gender imbalance also negatively impacts the experience of the men: nobody wants too much competition.

Currently there are 3 men for every woman on Tinder [0].

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/975925/us-tinder-user-ra...

Gay men are charged $8-13 while gay women are charged $7. Gay men and women aren't dating each other so this has nothing to do with gender imbalance.

Gay men can choose not to pay if they are unhappy with the price

Well yes, but at least in some places companies introducing different prices based on things like gender or race are not legal. Recently in the UK there was a case where a pub had a promotion where men paid more for drinks on the International Womens day, and someone took them to court over it and won - the court agreed that such pricing based in gender is not legal in the UK. On the other hand, clubs do this all the time without a fuss, but I suspect it's because no one challenged them legally on it yet.

In general I'm not a fan of the "gay people can just chose not to pay" argument - it sounds too similar to the one where some companies argued they should be allowed to deny gay people service, since they can simply go somewhere else.

The cost doesn't have anything to do with the price(except for setting the bare minimum if you want to break even).

If the price is higher that what it should be, there's your opportunity to sell your matching service at lower prices.

It's perfectly normal that these decisions aren't necessarily being made because of operating costs, pricing in general is arbitrary and does not have to have any relation whatsoever with costs.

Meh, it's just like cover prices at a club. As a guy, you can let the "unfairness" bother you, or you can realize it's in your best interest to minimize barriers for women because basically everything is a saugagefest otherwise.

Then again, the actual figures in the article tell a different story than the title does.

- Queer female under 30: $7/mo

- Straight female over 30: $30/mo

- Straight male over 50: $35/mo

So it's really age in general.

Though I'm a male in my 30s in a metro center and it's just showing me $8/mo. Though that's probably just Tinder's AI recognizing me as the gift to women that I am.

Also, Tinder Gold is optional. I'm a heavy dating-app user and would never pay for premium features.

Doesn't affect me personally I just thought it sounded weird from an outside perspective.

Commerce has never been done on the basis of operating costs. Go look at the price difference between a cheap shirt and an expensive shirt. The change in operating costs is nothing compared to the price difference.

More drinks will be bought if there is a certain ratio.

It's simply supply and demand. There are many more men than women using most dating services.

I know it's common, but shouldn't it be illegal?

You'd think with rules on the books against discriminating on the basis of sex that it would be a slam dunk case, for this and night club covers, but there must have not been a serious legal challenge to the practice yet.

It's probably counterproductive. Yeah, you can sue and maybe you can win. But are you sure you want the end result?

Human attraction, unfortunately, is not very fair, and definitely doesn't really follow anti-discrimination practices, from everything I've read so far.

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