Dating apps are often a miserable experience for the participants, however for some reason they are quite popular and at times can be quite addictive.
If dating apps did what they advertised, they would eliminate their customer base.
The objective of the application is to keep you engaged in what they are selling. They want you dating, but not in a long relationship.
They don’t have a lot of control on how it happens after you meet, so most of their influence will be in who they present to you and how they gamify interacting.
Solutions are going to come down to real world social skills and overcoming the boundaries of online connections.
A couple others here have the problem figured out and are echoing what I’ve been saying for years. Swiping is the problem. The addictive gamification of it may be fine for hookups (or just people browsing) but not for finding a potential partner.
Displaying more people, keeping you on the app for longer, is how these apps sell advertising. It’s about money, not love (especially given that they’re almost all owned by the same company now).
The more details you can include about yourself, the more data the platform has to understand you, the more likely it should be able to set you up with a partner. This results in far fewer people to choose from (less ad space), but potentially a higher likelihood of making a match.
Now, this may suggest the solution is a subscription service with some exclusivity and actual effort put into solving a problem for single adults. However, it’s clear that when given the options of a high-quality subscription service or an ad-subsidized inferior option, most people choose the cheaper. And the video streaming services have pointed out that they make more money from ads than they do subscriptions.
I have other opinions about how so many people are choosing to not interact with people IRL and how this is impacting our self-confidence and ability to function as a giving and empathetic partner. But maybe that’s off topic.
Dating apps are very much like games. It’s a big social game, and the reward is engagement.
To have a viable dating app it has to continue to have active participants. People need to feel dopamine using the dating app.
That being said the biggest issue is most of the dating apps are closed source. But the issue of opening them, to federation, are abuses spam, seeing people you don’t want to see etc.
Is swiping on people, and sending messages the ultimate in dating? Of course not. But it’s the current meta that’s emerged.
The big problems in the current model, engagement with people who are not photogenic. Being able to present people is more than a photo, with more depth. If the app does a very good job, and somebody finds a partner, they stop using the app, causing the community and ecosystem to die. So apps are currently incentivized to keep people engaged, but not off the market.
Humans are social creatures, Everything is a dating app one huge advantage dating apps have, is that more or less everyone is open to dating. And making connections.
I think Breeze is onto something. You only pay for actual date you go on. It has some deal with bars and cafes and you pay 10 euro and the app set up a date and the first drink is included. You are also only ever exposed to a very limited numbers of potential dates. It’s not available in my country, so I haven’t tried it.
Ghosters get their account frozen
Daters are screened and verified
You both pay upfront to show commitment
That’s actually quite intriguing. Seems like it’s a German startup and only available in Berlin? Maybe it’ll catch on and I’ve never heard of such a concept.
Met my wife 13 years ago on OkCupid. I really liked their idea… They used maths and statistics. You complete all these quizzes and it uses some proper math to work out how compatible you are with others.
Eg my wife and I matched something like 98% if I remember.
Here’s a video I could find: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m9PiPlRuy6E
While the site still exists I heard it doesn’t work this way anymore and is more like tinder now.
But I think combining games and quizzes into an app and then showing you matches based on more than just the physical is something which can easily be incorporated in a fun way into an app.
Been using OkC for almost that long on and off now. The quizzes and questions still exist, but they have been tokenized since OkC now shows you people the same way Tinder does and doesn’t have any ability to explore people and profiles the way you used to be able to back in the date. It’s so frustrating!
The idea of matches based on statistical calculations is just wild. I get basic requirements like non-smoker, vegan etc, but more like a filter. Beyond that, it’s random black magic that doesn’t work and is quite principally a flawed approach
The problem, like with a lot of stuff, ist that they are for profit and optimized in a way to maximize profit over the actual functionality.
And how could that be improved/resolved?
Somebody really passionate about it has to make one and not sell it or make it publicly tradable? Which would be difficult since the market is rather full (I would guess). Also dating can be just a miserable experience if one lacks self esteem and does not fit into societal expectations of desirability - that’s not on dating app problem.
It still has to be economically viable. Even if someone made one with good intentions, there’d still have to be a way to keep it afloat. How would you go about doing that?
Also dating can be just a miserable experience if one lacks self esteem and does not fit into societal expectations of desirability - that’s not on dating app problem.
I actually think that a good and popular dating app would theoretically solve that as the dating pool would be much larger.
The problem with them is that they’re designed to be addictive, and connecting people is actively against the economic interests of the app owners, so they don’t truly try and connect people.
So how would you go about truly connecting people and still making money?
Shadow ban any accounts that include the words “coffee,” “dog,” “long time,” or “the office” in their bios.
