Comment by AnIdiotOnTheNet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnIdiotOnTheNet | Hacker News Reader

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AnIdiotOnTheNet

I have an idea I've been toying with for a dating tool (I refuse to call it an app) based on the premise that all dating "apps" and "sites" are horrible because their incentives are aligned toward wanting people to actually use them. You pretty much have ad-driven and subscription models and both have perverse incentives. Further, the whole "wink", "like" and "swipe" nonsense increases the "meat market" commoditization and dehumanization of the whole thing.

So my idea is to put all the incentives the other way. The tool is designed to operate on a budget of ~$0. I would accept donations, but otherwise have no monetization and therefore no desire to increase "engagement" of any kind. My incentive is such that I actually don't want you to interact with the tool, because that will cost me bandwidth and processing time. I will allow you to have a profile of text and one single image of restricted size, because I don't want to have to host anything else. You will fill out a multiple choice questionnaire with as few questions as I feel I can get away with to ensure at least some level of basic compatibility, and then you do nothing.

Periodically, a cron job will run and see if anyone matches, then it will send you both each others profiles (through good old-fashion email) and ask if you'd like to go on a date. If you've both agreed, there will be a sequence of messages from the system proposing date ideas, locations, and times until consensus is reached. Then it's all up to you. This is designed to ensure that you make a real human connection to the person in a real life interaction before any contact information is ever exchanged.

It probably sounds as though this sort of thing would have a hard time attracting users. I consider that a feature, because it means it'll cost less to run and it will avoid attracting ego-inflation seekers, low effort numbers gamers, and other ungenuine people.

As envisioned, I would expect this sort of thing could cover a moderately sized state on a raspberry pi.

I've thought about ways to improve dating networks, and I think the best solution is to throw them out and just get young people to go out in groups and do activities together. Romance would be a secondary output (as would friendships, professional networking, and plain old perspective broadening).

Rationale is that a lot of women, and to a lesser degree men, do not feel comfortable going out 1x1 with a stranger (and potential predator/rapist/catfish). Not to mention the pressure of finding common interests and cultivating a date experience. The group dynamic offers safety, and the hobby-focused nature of the activity offers entertainment without pressure.

For what it's worth, I came to the same conclusion. You cannot fix online dating, but the real problem is that the younger generations used to have a lot of face to face hangout time due to how the world worked pre-internet, and all that is gone now. Now you have to plan every hangout and it happens once a week instead of once a day.

I think this is probably the best solution. But what activities do you recommend? Compared to a couple generations ago it seems like it's harder to find good casual activities that appeal to both sexes as a default meeting ground.

Dancing, hiking, DnD, habitat restoration / plastic pickup, team sports in general, volunteering in general.

That would also fix the incentive problem dating sites have to make sure you only find low quality matches so you will stay on the platform.

There is a dating service called Events and Adventures which operates that way. A friend of mine worked there but I never used it and don't know whether it's effective.

And I will make X profiles from X emails, filling out the questionnaire in several ways to maximize the number of hits I get. The profile will be some good ol PT Barnum style pablum that appeals to just about all of us. I will also add pictures that are either extremely flattering of me, or of someone else. It doesn't really matter.

Then I just agree to every date that gets sent to my email. Ideally this could be automated so that I could run it on a raspberry pi.

But please, go on.

Then you... what? Don't show up to dates? Do show up but get no contact information anyway because you aren't who you said you were? That's a lot of effort to put in for essentially nothing.

I could still go on the dates. I'm pointing out that you've solved no problems and instead opened the door to several other ones.

You've just made a bad/even more exploitable OkCupid/Tinder/PlentyOfFish clone.

You could, but I don't really see the incentive in it. At least, I don't really see how it is any easier than doing basically the same thing on any other dating platform, except those platforms put you in contact with the person before you actually have to meet them.

The more dates I go on, the more likely I am to find a compatible partner. That's an incentive.

...by completely avoiding all basic compatibility factors (wanting kids, sexual orientation, religiosity, etc) and misrepresenting yourself?

Have you seen the world? That's what people already do. Not to mention the first person we ever lie to is ourselves.

You're treating people being dishonest as some sort of revelation.

If we're not aiming for mass market, this service could use mobile device WebAuth as it's only authentication vehicle limiting it to one per device.

How do you spam/exploit that?

Now we're just in the standard web arms race. And that's the kind of work he's already said he doesn't want.

This is an excellent way to have a LOT of just bad, bad dates. Good luck! I hope you change, for your sake, and for the sake of the people you'll drag through dates.

I think a lot of companies hiring programmers take an analogous approach, and tend to get a lot of mediocre candidates as a result.

Dating is a numbers game. The more dates you go on, the higher odds you have of finding someone compatible.

Sure you could be more picky and spend the same effort to go on less dates and maybe end up in the same boat at the end, you'll just get laid less often. And honestly, I learned so much about myself, about women, and about people in general by going on a bunch of average or below average dates.

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