It’s not exactly controversial to say that online dating is awful, at least for those seeking heterosexual relationships. It sucks very differently for men and women though, and from what I hear it can actually be pretty good for homosexual relationships. (Especially for gay men, I think? I haven’t really heard about it for women, but then again I do live under a rock, in a cave, and on another planet.)
This difference is interesting and worth exploring, though anything as socially and culturally involved as sex, dating, and relationships is obviously riddled with proverbial mines. I’ve recently come across this video though that I think did an unusually good job at analyzing the situation:
He highlights two main problems: there are many more men on these dating apps then women, and women appear to judge the profiles of men much more harshly for attractiveness than vica-versa. It’s obviously nigh-impossible to make online dating not be awful, with such a premise, though various attempts have been made.
Beyond the cultural and social controversy surrounding the whole topic, I would like to highlight one thing: running an effective online dating app would be terrible business under most models, whether it’s making money from ads, optional purchasable extra features, or subscriptions. Imagine if the average user signed up for the app, created their profile, started using it, and the app would be so effective that they’d immediately get genuine dates with real, interesting partners. They’d probably find themselves in a new relationship in no time and would have no need for the app anymore!
A non-user doesn’t make money, therefore it is the financial interest of the business to keep you a user. On the other hand, if the app is completely ineffective, then again it would lose all but the most desperate potential users. because then it’s just a waste of time, why would you pay for it? In order to keep the active user count as high as possible, the app cannot be too effective nor too ineffective.
The incentives of the users (who want to find sexual or romantic partners) and the business (who wants you to keep using it for as long as possible) are greatly misaligned, and that is not good. Any success of any kind of social or economic system only comes from successfully aligning the interests of as many groups as possible.
Perhaps there is a business model that could work for online dating that would not be so horribly misaligned, but if so, I haven’t seen it yet.