It’s also in the companies’ interests to game the algorithm so just enough people get a relationship out of using the app that it keeps everyone else hooked thinking they could be the next one but not too many users settle down because that would hit their bottom line.
It’s one reason an open source (Fediverse?) dating app is a good idea - it either has no algorithm or one that is open to scrutiny.
Great idea
I wonder if there’s a way to engineer some of these issues out of the equation effectively. Like a way to equalize both sides of the pool so that both genders get a better experience.
Like maybe set up a “room” where 5 men and 5 women interact for a certain amount of time (or indefinite?) and then at the end can choose to continue contact or find a new group.
Or making it explicit for what each person is looking for and enforcing it in that app at least, like if you say you’re into monogamy, limit the number of people you can chat with and have some mechanism of communicating clearly to partners which you’ve selected, so someone can’t say they aren’t looking but continue swiping anyways. Could set it up so that the app recognizes exclusiveness and tells matches if they’ve set that up with another person and that other person if they cancel it to set it up with someone new.
Or limit matches so that women aren’t as overwhelmed or feel like their matches need to jump through hoops to impress them and stand out from so many options. Even as a guy, the times when I’ve had multiple matches with active conversation going on with more than one seems to make it less likely it will go anywhere with any of them.
Sorry about two different replies in the same thread, just figured I’d break them up (heh) as they are different lines of thought.
I honestly think they should introduce some element of scarcity. Like only match people with up to 5 people per week. This limits the selection and gives some room for people to focus a bit on having a proper conversation.
When I used dating apps the backlog of people to talk to was endless. Made it really hard to care about one person. You always had the feeling that you should maybe keep looking.
Coffee meets bagel did this. You get X people per day, regardless of match or not.
Plus factor in how many accounts are just fake scam bots. And then the assumptions that get made on other matches given the existence of scam bots. Like my method of detecting them is pretty much, high alert on attractive Asian woman, if she tries to move it to WhatsApp quickly, she’s probably a bot. If she mentions investing as an interest/hobby, probably a bot.
Well, maybe not a bot, their responses seem better than the days where they’d just use a simple script that assumed the other person was sticking to it (which used to be a great way to detect them, just ask an unusual follow up question or answer one of their questions in a way that should beg a different response). They are either using some kind of an LLM or just hire a bunch of people to chat and direct people to the WhatsApp-based CSRs.
