The Dating App Swipe Is Dying. What Comes Next May Be Worse
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This should be the title
The last time any dating apps were "good" was when they weren't apps, but websites. People on these sites back then weren't really trying to optimize for anything. Many were honest and had realistic expectations. It was considered a bit loserish because it's the digital version of the want ads. Of course, everyone likes piña coladas.
Dating websites were the less exhausting alternative to going out drinking or finding new social circles. People understood that low risk meant low reward, but hey it was either that or no date at all.
In other words, this was always a pretty bad scene. What changed is the marketing angle more poised to take advantage of the naive. Making it shiny because computers isn't really working anymore. It's crazy it ever did.
The per-event odds of finding love by going out drinking and joining new social circles are low. But the odds of making some great memories and good friends in the process are pretty high*. At least better compared to the alternative of sitting at home and swiping on an app.
* There's an entire TV show based on this premise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Met_Your_Mother
Sure, everyone is different and has different tastes, but I'm not even talking about being super attractive -- even just people that are emotionally functional, moderately skilled communicators, visually and socially unobjectionable, and modestly interesting will also leave the pool relatively quickly.
This leads to two options: 1. At any given time, the apps are overwhelmingly populated by people for whom there is at least one very good reason they are currently single. If they're lucky, that reason is changeable, and they find out about it and change it, and leave the app pretty quickly thereafter. 2. The apps intentionally sandbag their "placement rate," repeatedly matching people that are capable of having good relationships with people that aren't, in order to keep a decent pool of the former in the app.
Neither of those scenarios makes a dating app a particularly good place to start a relationship.
On the other hand, an app designed for people looking for for one-off hookups can easily prosper indefinitely, since good candidates for one-off hookups aren't going to stop using the app the second they have a good hookup.
Maybe being brutally handsome and in my 30s is keeping me from understanding, but I'm saying using these apps is now far more effort than not.
It's sort of like watching people try to eat healthy by changing their fast food or frozen dinner preferences. There's a fundamental misunderstanding making this way harder than it has to be. People need to learn to express themselves in a way that's both honest and attractive in order to be happy in both relationships and hookups, and these apps stunt that growth.
Higher quality people have higher standards, it never gets easier because you are always competing within your own dating pool. Celebrities basically date only other celebrities and still have to compete (and sometimes cheat) with other celebrities. The game is always the same, just different players.
There is no variable you can change that somehow 'solves' dating. This is not a simple board game.
>2. The apps intentionally sandbag their "placement rate," repeatedly matching people that are capable of having good relationships with people that aren't, in order to keep a decent pool of the former in the app.
There is little to no signal that someone is "capable of having a good relationship" through a digital curated profile. Even someone who has been on the app a long time can just be unlucky or more selective.
>On the other hand, an app designed for people looking for for one-off hookups can easily prosper indefinitely, since good candidates for one-off hookups aren't going to stop using the app the second they have a good hookup.
This is not at all an original idea. You can also set your dating intentions to "short term" on any dating app. It makes no difference. In fact, even women only interested in this like to pretend to be prude for their self-image. It also won't change the asymmetry issue between men and women due to risks involved for women that makes them far more selective.
No good can come from letting a company become load-bearing in an activity humans were able to do for free since time immemorial - find a partner.
(Yes I'm aware some traditional societies had/have professional matchmakers)
Seems foolish to me to ban technology from dating given how much time people invest into it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In any case this is a non-sequitur. Recreational kickball isn't a dating app.
I don't think it's possible legally to "ban technology" from the dating space. "Dating apps should not exist" was aspirational, not a call for a legal ban.
(and yes, I found my wife by paying for a membership in a dating app. We wouldn't meet otherwise even though we lived in the same city)
That's just pedantry, sorry. It's obvious that forming a relationship has non-monetary costs. And the bar tab for the date is the cost of drinks and food. That's the value you receive for the money you spend. Not companionship, or the chance of companionship.
Dates can be a simple walk in the park or on the beach - no spending necessary. That may not land with every potential partner. Some of them will want you to spend, or even spend big, on dates. But then that's also a natural filter of its own, if you want it to be.
It's not pedantry at all. An app is just another option to find someone. You may not like that option, for other people it might even be the only realistic one.
Spending on drinks and food is never required to have the date. It makes the date good but it isn't what makes the date possible. You're going to eat anyway, you may as well eat with someone.
> An app is just another option to find someone
And "find someone" is an activity that largely hasn't cost money for all but the last 15 years of human existence. Relying on apps to make dates possible is dangerous.
> You may not like that option, for other people it might even be the only realistic one
We should examine why that is, or if it's even true. People have never had trouble pairing up before. Or at least, not troubles that have gone away in the dating app era. From the data it isn't obvious that dating apps make the process of partner-finding better - everyone sounds miserable, long-term relationship formation is down. Skepticism about technology that costs money, doesn't even work, and reduces happiness is warranted.
> And "find someone" is an activity that largely hasn't cost money for all but the last 15 years of human existence.
That's completely false. Courtship involved money since forever (and also paid dating apps are older than 15 years).
> People have never had trouble pairing up before.
People have always had trouble pairing up.
And dating apps have eliminated these problems? I posit that the old problems remain and dating apps have added new ones on top.
> Courtship involved money since forever
Courtship required, or at least benefited from, demonstrable financial stability. Because that's an attractive quality in a mate for many people. But that's no different from saying "Courtship involved looks|religion|health/fertility since forever".
Courtship didn't previously require paying an intermediary to engage in. There's a distinction here that you either can't or don't want to understand.
> also paid dating apps are older than 15 years
But only in the last 15 years have they taken over dating.
Before swipes, before "buy Premium to un-hide these people who like you" paywalls, dating apps let you message people directly in exchange for showing some Google ads that were unobtrusive.
No surprise at all that an out-of-touch, billionnaire CEO thinks that the missing ingredient is AI.
If we're saying dating apps are actually only hookup apps, that's a different story. However everyone, including the apps themselves, sees them as a way, or more commonly these days, the only way, to find long-term love. They are two different problems and the latter shouldn't involve apps.
I can't ever see anything improving. They will just learn how to manipulate men further into paying, where you suddenly get swarmed with likes then get nothing for a period then get swarmed again so you remain hooked and eventually pay.
In any case, you only pay for dates you go to (unless you cancel at the last moment). Their incentive is to send you to as many dates as possible.
I think the key problem for dating apps is that 90% of women on it will only match with the top 10% of men. Meanwhile, most men will try to match with anything that has a nose and eyes.
I don't think Breeze's concept fixes that since it's still up to the girl to match.
Probably that's why they did this:
> you only have a very limited amount of profiles visible every day
It doesn't matter if Breeze limits matches to a few a day. Women who have Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, etc will still get thousands of likes from top 10% guys. There's no reason for them to go on a date with a 50th percentile guy from Breeze. They're not only using Breeze.
If you're getting success on Breeze, you probably have success in other dating apps too.
It's the average guy who is screwed on dating apps no matter if it's Breeze or Bumble.
On the general side, do you really think that the women who match the 10% guys on Tinder are actually getting dates with them? If those guys have so many to choose from, they'll choose better matches. Or they're going to say that they're looking for non-monogamous relationships because that's what works in their interest. So traditional apps are not working for women either- just everyone despises Tinder and Bumble, at least that's what I'm hearing left and right. Again, this is just my social circle and age range, so YMMV.
I think the mathematics work better if they match you with "mostly compatible" people rather than "not compatible at all". Success stories are important because that's how you build recognition.
Now a days though, match group owns all dating apps so they have a monopoly in dating. Whenever a new app comes to market that's "better" (which will be, in its initial stages) they acquire. Users migrate and then they ruin. Rinse and repeat.
They recently acquired sniffies (a gay cruising app) for like 100M. Go figure.
* Recruit friends to make recommendations mimics classic searching techniques
* Can scope out a more complete bio early in the process, for both AI and Human filtering/matching
* Their long term incentives will be meet if they post cute couple pictures or generate new long term users
In theory the 'knows people you know' thing is a good vetting system for finding people to date though.
1. There's a steady stream of unmarried individuals so as you match people up there's more people (either just from growing older or divorce) that can use the app.
2. If you don't already own a dating app, then even if you cannibalize the market you can still make a large sum of money. Akin to mining all the gold in a plot of land; sure your company needs to close once its gone but you made money in the interium.
2.5. If you do already own a dating app, if you're known for not working then people will stop using the app and go to a competitor (assuming you didn't buy them all ...)
Hinge is the behemoth and it’s practically how everyone in the UMC and in rich cities meets now after college. It’s unsettling how few serious relationships I meet have been made in some other way (or even a different app) in recent years. Again, college is the big one but if you’re single after college then it seems you’re going to have to meet through Hinge. It’s hard to meet anyone who is serious in any other way.
Relationship pairing is overall down across the board though. Looksism is at its all time high and I think will continue to be even more dominant than it already has. I’ve seen the culture shift quite drastically over the last ten years. The idea of dating someone for their personality and completely ignoring their looks is well dead and gone at this point. No one even trying to keep up the facade that most everything in your dating prospects is dictated by your superficial traits.
I won't go into my personal explanations here as I'll just be downvoted into oblivion (there are other forums for that discussion) but I will say this: without men and women having reasons to be in relationships--especially long-term reasons--then relationships won't happen. It's proving easier to get our needs met outside of relationships.
Enlighten us.
I'm actually fine with this. I'm not sure I want to be around the same person constantly for longer than a few years and I'm glad modern life allows me to do that. Leaving my family when I became an adult was the best thing I ever did.
I'm sure someone out there's thinking or about to say "families are the basis of a stable society" and that's incorrect. The basis of a stable society is having enough money. Without that, families are simply going to be a performative thing to satisfy angry people and/or busybodies.
as surely as fire will burn
the gods of the copybook headings
with terror and slaughter return
The old formula has endured and shan't be supplanted by these fancy gizmos.
It seems inevitable if you are consistently around people and known to be single that they will try to set you up with *someone.
This is surprising to me. I'd think churches would be overjoyed about congregants dating, getting married, and having children (who then go on to attend church).
> The only purpose of church is worship, not socialization or politics or pushing an agenda or judgment
Is this sarcasm?