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Comment by solatic | Hacker News Reader

It's only a paradox until you realize that dating apps would shoot themselves in the foot with such a user-hostile model, trashing their brand. Hanlon's Razor directs us to the simpler explanation, which is that 90% of people on dating markets stay on dating markets; for which there are many, many highly personalized reasons. No dating app can fix its users' mindsets.

There are three rules on dating apps, and they haven't changed in the last couple of decades: be attractive, don't be unattractive, and inject humor. The fourth rule is to remember that if you want to be treated like a customer then make sure you pay for the product rather than being the product; the fifth rule is to have patience over things outside of your control.

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I found my wife on Hinge in a suburban-bordering-rural part of the country (so not a lot of people on the apps in absolute terms) right before its acquisition and actually had better success broadly speaking on Bumble. The trick was, unfortunately, to pay for it. Have super likes or whatever they're called. Pay for the membership to see people who like me without having to swipe. Pay to boost my profile so more people see it and potentially like it. The worst part (for me), actually spend time curating photos and writing thoughtful answers to things - the former being much more important than the latter. Even with all of this I'd hit nights where I had seemingly swiped one way or the other on every eligible bachelorette within 100 miles. Maybe I had.

Unfortunately I don't have any reproducible or generalizable advice from meeting my wife. She was my only match on Hinge, neither of us paid for it, and we moved to phone conversation and dates within 48 hours.

I really like this take, and I think it becomes extremely self-evident once you think about it for a bit, and talk with people who use dating apps IRL.

"Dating apps are incentivized to keep people going on mediocre first dates" is such a tired take that would require such incredible sophistication and secrecy to pull off, "we can't make the matches too shitty, but we also can't make them too good, damn it Jim that match was too high quality! now they'll stop paying!" its comic book villain stuff that cannot possibly explain why all of these apps suck.

"For which there are many highly personalized reasons" -> Look, yes people are responsible for their own mindsets. But in the words of a recent tweet (I wish I could cite but I can't find it) concerning learning comprehension tanking in K-12 students: Its Phones! Its just phones. Its obviously phones! You hear this crap like "well, its a highly complicated situation with many variables and possible explanations" Nope! Its literally just phones!

Dating is hard, weird, and scary. Its one of the most vulnerable things humans do. We're putting kids on a dopamine treadmill from childhood, and we're surprised that, at best, we've got cohorts of individuals growing up who love the matching but stop when it gets any more difficult than a swipe?

> that would require such incredible sophistication and secrecy to pull off

No, there's no need for a strawman Snidely Whiplash, it can be done through regular management practices with plausible deniability.

1. Collect metrics around recurring revenue and "engagement". (With the software, not engagements between couples.)

2. Use those metrics to choose what changes in the software and who gets promoted.

Low quality matches is the default state, they don't have to deliberately engineer it. They can just let it happen, or not care when it happens as the result of some other change.

The people using dating apps are blind to the effects of "paradox of choice" on themselves.

> "we can't make the matches too shitty, but we also can't make them too good, damn it Jim that match was too high quality! now they'll stop paying!" its comic book villain stuff that cannot possibly explain why all of these apps suck.

No, they celebrate Jim—all the more if he is ordinary. It's like extreme couponing. The employees are genuinely cheering all the way to the bank when they see someone stack coupons to take home $20,000 of goods for only $300. Jim is the jackpot winner who invites all his unlucky friends.

I completely agree. I'm always amused by the idea that dating apps have this secret, sophisticated algorithm that gives you dates that are nice but leave you wanting more. Human relationships are hard and I doubt that the best experts in the field could come up with something like that, and it's certainly impossible for an algorithm without any information about the person. I always feel that these complaints come from the frustration of not being able to find the perfect partner, from people who don't even come close to the standard they want in a partner.

In my experience, online dating is a pretty well functioning marketplace. People have a limited amount of time to date, so they'll take the best one they can get. Of course, online dating narrows down the ranking process to superficial information, but I don't think there's a technical solution to that. As a man I've seen both sides of the coin. When I started out with online dating I didn't have good pictures, no good bio, no good writing skills and didn't pay. I went months without a good match and even longer without a date. Then I decided to clean up my profile, highlight my strengths as a potential partner, learned to carry a fun conversation and started paying for the product and suddenly had to reject women, simply because I had too many options for any given night.

Dating apps are just a more extreme form of real dating. Dating always has been a competition, people will choose the best partner they can get. The advantage of the real world is that people often don't have many choices, but the disadvantage of the real world is also that people don't have many choices. Apps get rid of that disadvantage, but also of that advantage.

I don't doubt that many users are approaching dating apps suboptimally but I don't think its fair to completely throw out the idea that these companies are knowingly trading quality of service for profitability.

Network effects are such a huge piece of the puzzle that can draw people to a service despite it being a bad experience (see FB marketplace), and app companies have gotten extremely good at finding the optimal amount of user hostility (see the vast majority of mobile games).

Beyond that, Match can afford to be user hostile because they have proven able to consistently buy basically everyone in town. Who cares if Tinder gets a bad rap, there's a very good chance users go to another Match Group service and they can buy practically any non-Match service that springs up.

> inject humor

Is that advice for men? I hope so. In my experience, women don't need to be funny to be successful on dating apps.

> It's only a paradox until you realize that dating apps would shoot themselves in the foot with such a user-hostile model, trashing their brand.

This is sarcasm right? What dating app has a stellar reputation? Which one hasn't been outright caught or isn't widely suspected of using fake profiles to string users along? Or hasn't failed to prevent obvious scammers/rapists? Or hasn't leaked/sold their customer's data?

The idea that dating apps have a precious reputation that they must carefully maintain or no one would use their services is beyond ridiculous

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