Web Site Makes Millions by Connecting Cheaters | Hacker News Reader

Web Site Makes Millions by Connecting Cheaters

npr.org

I'm going to completely ignore the ethical and moral questions this services raises, and instead focus on this:

Don, a 52-year-old IT specialist living in Southern California who, not surprisingly, preferred not to give his real last name, is one of the site's hundreds of users.

I'm hoping this guy didn't give his real first name, either. Southern CA has millions of people, but I bet there are less than 10 who fit that description exactly. Hell, there might only be one.

I like this site, not because it is at all ethical or because I have any interest in partaking in its over-priced services but because it makes this society as a whole more upfront about its hypocrisy.

Human beings has often been polyamourous with cheating. If ostensible monogamy becomes more obviously just ostensible, then open polyamory becomes more appealing.

Down with cheating, sure but things that let us ease out hypocritical monogamy with less emotional blow-back are good.

I hope he DID give his real last name...

"Don Deshizzle", that's a sweet name

Hundreds of users to millions of dollars? Incredible monetization ratio.

I am reminded of that "33 bits" blog that pops up here periodically. Every living person is uniquely addressable with 33 bits of the right information. "California" is worth 8 bits by itself. Male gets you another 1. Age within one year is probably 6 or so...

Ah, here's that blog: http://33bits.org/

Its fundamentally changed the way I think about anonymity. (I used to think it might be possible.)

I can't upvote you enough. What an elegantly simple way to think about anonymous data. Thanks for the link.

"Southern" gives you another 1.5, and "IT specialist" maybe gives you another 6, given the geographic area and gender. Total bits: 22.5. So there might be on the order of 1000 52-year-old male IT specialists in Southern California. The ones named "Don" are in trouble now.

This site has the exact same problem as AdultFriedFinder, which is that no woman needs it. If one really wants some NSA relations, all she has to do is go to a bar, rather than publicly post her picture on the net where anyone (including her husband) can find it.

I suspect both of those sites are almost entirely men chasing fake accounts.

I dunno, there's probably a large market of women who don't really want some NSA relations, but still want to play around like they do. Or that aren't sure if they do or not and just want to dip their toe in. Or that do, but don't have the courage to throw themselves into the bar scene.

I think the bar scene is FAR less courageous than AFF.

Why? The bar scene, it's you unmediated. Even if you adopt a different persona while you're out, you have to work to keep it going the whole time. Rejection is immediate and in your face, oftentimes cold. If you're not in a huge city, you always risk running into someone you know.

On the web, you can construct whatever reality you want, and you don't have to throw your whole self into it while you do so. You can put up fake pictures, you can flirt from the comfort of your bathrobe. You can keep your anonymity until the actual moment of interaction, and you know the groundrules going in.

It's a bunch of slimy, anonymous strangers on AFF. You think the average woman wants anything to do with anyone who would be on AFF?

1. You're changing the subject, from 'courage' to 'desire'.

2. We're talking about a woman who goes out and picks up random strangers, either in a bar or online. Is that the 'average' woman?

3. I wasn't talking about AFF in particular, just the idea of cheating via the internet vs. cheating via the bar scene.

I agree that women have very little need for AFF, but I'm not so sure about this one.

There was a study that got some attention right after the Spitzer scandal (I wish I could find the link right now). It turns out that married people who seek prostitutes do so for the 'thrill,' and sex is a distant second. There are many parallels here: women who shoplift are often rich, they do it because they can't stand the boredom. I haven't watched the show Desperate Housewives, but I understand that a common theme is that women cheat because their lives are too sedate.

Thus, the faint possibility of being caught might actually increase the appeal of this service.

Also, people significantly overestimate their anonymity online. This is the subject of my research (http://33bits.org), which I see someone else has already linked to :-)

I think the idea of women going to bars for NSA relations is a bit degrading. The quality of a bar hookup is very low. I'm speaking anecdotally, but I doubt anyone will disagree: most infidelities happen with someone you know fairly well.

This site will do much better with women than AFF for two reasons:

1: the front page isn't covered with scantily clad, beautiful women. yes, there's an image of a girl going down on a guy, but the guy has a very nice body.

2: there's an assumption that the men are married and thus have careers, friends, family, etc. - i.e. they aren't weirdos.

I've met a few polyamorous girls who sought NSA relations, and a frequent complaint is that finding a partner is easy, but finding a quality partner is difficult, both on the internet and in bars. It's like what Joel Spolsky wrote about job seekers mostly being poor quality, because high quality people are already taken.

This is mostly in England (and not London, where I hear the situation is better), so maybe it's easier in a polyamorous hub like San Francisco.

I pride myself on having nearly no ethical or moral constraints, but damn, "Life is short, have an affair!" is a bit much even for me.

And considering it costs roughly $2.50 to send an email it might be cheaper in the long run to just get a divorce. Okay, maybe not...

OT: Out of curiosity, why do you pride yourself on having nearly no ethical or moral constraints?

Not intending to speak for the poster, I think he's referring to have no ethical or moral constraints when it comes to a business.

There is certainly a lot of money to be made in areas where morals are gray or downright black...

Actually, Tom's a crazy psychopath.

(This will be downmodded by reasonable people; YC founders who actually know Tom will upmod. :) )

can you cite examples? :P

I hear that child slavery is a notable high-margin sector in our current macroeconomic climate.

I'm guessing he means he doesn't judge and hoping he doesn't mean he will kill you as soon as look at you.

Those guys really must enjoy sleeping soundly at night. At best they're taking money from people for dreaming of better partners. At worse they're actually helping people screw each other over.

Along these same lines, we can have sites for people who want to cheat on exams, cheat on taxes. Maybe we could even have sites where people could plot crimes together -- anonymously, of course.

those sites already exist and are fairly well established.

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