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Comment by idealmedtech | Hacker News Reader

The problem really happens when you do algorithmic price setting, which incentivizes you as the developer to get people addicted to the experience of swiping, regardless of whether or not the swiping has the desired outcome for the end user. A user base with just the right levels of dopamine from interactions and loneliness will probably end up buying one of the weekly promotional deals.

That's why when you first start on any dating service, you're (typically) inundated with activity, so that you can always chase that high, and when you can't get it, you try to pay for it.

Online dating is a tough problem to solve, tougher still when profit incentives misalign with user success incentives! I'm not even sure what an equitable but also successful dating service would look like, because there's this fundamental mismatch in values.

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The problem is worse than that... The app/site developers interests are directly opposing the users interests.

The user (perhaps) wants to find a lifelong partner, and never use dating apps again.

The site developer wants users to never find a lifelong partner, and to spend months/years returning to the app to find new candidates.

In my experience, the developer usually wins - some users on dating sites have been there a decade or more, and active much of that time.

This model ignores a key incentive: dating apps that don't successfully match won't be used.

So at best, the developer is incentivized to have the user find someone to date in the short term and have the relationship fail in a manner that doesn't reflect poorly on the dating site. And it's not really feasible for the dating site distinguish between "will successfully date for a few months" and "will successfully date for a lifetime".

You could apply the same logic to any long term purchase. Dealerships only sell lemons because they want you to come back and buy more cars. Recruiters only match you with companies that you'll definitely want to leave because they want to match you again. Realtors only show you houses you'll hate because then you'll want to move again.

> dating apps that don't successfully match won't be used.

This isn't entirely true. A portion of the user base uses it almost entirely for entertainment and validation. I'd suspect it's a sizeable portion at that.

> it's not really feasible for the dating site distinguish between "will successfully date for a few months" and "will successfully date for a lifetime".

I think it is feasible for a dating site to figure that out, given enough data.

And I think the 'few months' figure is probably too high - they want to match people who will go on a few dates or a one night stand, then return to the app.

It's a pretty damn strong signal when a user matches with someone, exchanges phone numbers, then deactivates their account. The ML algorithms will be trained to do everything possible to avoid that outcome.

> I think it is feasible for a dating site to figure that out, given enough data.

I've worked on the developer-side of this; I assure you, it's not. It's hard enough to predict if people will exchange messages with any reasonable precision + recall.

> It's a pretty damn strong signal when a user matches with someone, exchanges phone numbers, then deactivates their account. The ML algorithms will be trained to do everything possible to avoid that outcome.

Yeah, any dating site that does this is doomed to irrelevance.

If it were as easy to make a successful dating site by just optimizing for that signal, you should really do it. Match will acquire you for millions - billions, and the core code is relatively simple. You could get it running in under a week. Get some VC funding, do a gradual roll out onto a few colleges, you'll be a multi-millionaire by Spring.

Have you considered the network effect? Users can't switch if there is no competitor with possible matches.

There is also a network effect for data. A dating site with few users doesn't collect much data, so can't train an ML algorithm to do a good job of showing you interesting matches.

This isn't really the case though.

If an app isn't getting you decent dates every so often, you'll move to an app that does. And it's pretty clear within a couple of months if an app is working for you or not.

And then once you're in a relationship, the app has zero control over whether it succeeds or not!

So no, dating apps aren't working against your romantic interests, simply because a) there's too much competition and b) they're not even smart enough to identify your true love and then hide him/her from you.

They are trying to make a buck off of you though. Which they should, since they're a business.

But so no, the developer doesn't "usually" win. I have lots of friends who got married from an online date. The people you know who are still on the apps after a decade -- well it's not like they've settled down with anyone they met in real life either. It's probably not the apps' fault.

Most of the apps are owned by Match.com, and they've slowly migrated to the same mechanism, the only difference is the demographics they cater to.

But there is no competition. A single company controls all the main apps.

Sounds a lot like a casino. The house always wins, at the expense of their customers.

Maybe it’s worse than a casino - relatively few people walk into a casino expecting to win life changing money and never come back.

Many people use dating apps expecting to find a lifelong partner and never come back.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind paying $10K for finding someone who actually becomes my life partner, let's say due upon 2 years of stable marriage. In such a system, user incentives would be fully aligned with the business. However -- this would be hard to enforce.

My brother posted on FB offering several thousand dollars for anyone who referred him a wife. No dice though. He met his wife a couple years later via one of the apps.

I was thinking the money could be held in escrow. You could only get your money back if you end up marrying someone you didn't meet on the service.

Not sure I like that idea. What if I never marry because I don't meet someone {compatible, available, interested}?

Maybe if I can delete my account from the platform at any time (even without marrying anyone) and get my money back I'd be OK with it. Ideally, the money in escrow should also earn interest or have the option to invest it in some generic index fund.

> That's why when you first start on any dating service, you're (typically) inundated with activity, so that you can always chase that high, and when you can't get it, you try to pay for it.

It's striking how the business model is indistinguishable from how cocaine dealers were described to us as kids in the 80s.

Only two industries call their customers "users" (-:

I'm so tired of this line. The reason they're called "users" in tech is because unlike in many industries, they don't pay anything for access to the platform/app. If they all paid, they'd be called "customers".

Implying that tech companies and drug dealers are birds of a feather based on this is silly. If you want to say tech companies make addictive products, say that. But don't pretend that calling people "users" is evidence in furtherance of this argument.

> But don't pretend that calling people "users" is evidence in furtherance of this argument.

I didn't. It's a joke. See: (-:

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