Comment by gassi 4 days ago
I think the author missed an important factor: misaligned incentives.
Dating apps make money when users spend time (and money) on the platform. Users who find a partner tend to leave the platform, so dating companies are incentivized to prevent that from happening. Those companies then have more opportunities to up-sell those users on premium features, which they're more likely to purchase due to repeated failure and/or feelings of inadequacy.
> - the KPI "do-more-users-leave-our-platform-earlier-if-our-matching-algo-is-just-too-good" - I promise: In alle the years, this question WAS NEVER - NEVER!!!!!!! - raised, regardless wich Manager or which Exec. This metric isnt even debated.
What labels do they use for training their algos though? What is their definition of a successful match, is it a date, a recurring date, or something closer to a long-term relationship?
If matches predominantly result in "failure" they might just not have enough "long-term success" labels to go by, and their proxy labels will be biased towards short-term successes.
Wrong approach; at least until latest, NONE of the standard apps does apply any kind of "real AI" stuff, maybe this changed through the last 3 - 4 years.
All thi matching stuff like "match with X%" is just bullshit.
The only platform having a useful approach here was OKC years ago. (but even for their scoring you would not need any type of sophisticated tech)
And yet, the premium features are overtly aligned against user success!
I believe you that these app devs think they are optimizing for user success, but that doesn't change the incentives that frame their work.
The greatest utility of a dating app should be that it provides a higher number of opportunities. This feature is explicitly broken by the most popular dating apps. Often, it is put behind a paywall, which has the same effect as being broken.
> higher number of opportunities. <
Limitting search/result is often used to tease users into the subscription. Eg. Tiner allows in free mode only a certain number of swipes. Is it this what you mean? This is usually depends on: Search + text for free but limited, or "pay for everything" I do not see why putting some features behind a paywall is "against users interest" and how this limits/increases his/her chances?
You are claiming that dating sites should be free - this doesnt work usually (POF as exception) - and making users pay for those does not increase his/her chances: EVERYTHING that happens before you met someone will be crashed usually in the very first second you met (and smell!) someone.
So if you have a chance with another person, is something that is completely(!) out of control of the website operator. EDIT: this is something website operators do know, they cant change it and this is something that they should put on their website - they are selling dreams and expectations, which wont become true in real.
This is often parroted, but the reasoning is flawed. The vast majority of the platform's growth will come from new users, who are entering the dating scene. If they fail to capture that audience (say, by having a reputation of not performing as advertised), then no amount of upsells or string-alongs of existing users will sustain them, as their user base will only ever decrease, and investors will see that and withdraw accordingly.
Everything about this is wrong.
1) The platforms aren't growing that impressively. Most of their users have been on the platform for a while, were previous users, etc.
2) It doesn't matter how good the app is, you need a network effect. New users are going to go to where the potential dates are.
3) Marketing does wonders. An app can suck and have great marketing. It will get users over an app that actually works and doesn't have good marketing.
4) Lots of people on dating apps are looking for dates (hookups), not partners. If the apps can keep you getting dates, not partners, they can keep you on the app and happy.
Happy in terms of being a customer of the app perhaps.
Match's growth peaked a long time ago. The site is now trying to grow by "offering new products" and "cutting operational costs."
The relative newcomers - Bumble and Hinge - grew by trying to offer a better experience, especially for women, who are traditionally overwhelmed with unreciprocated interest on conventional apps. Both seem to have admitted defeat now and moved to the usual model.
In terms of revenue, the incentive to keep millions of users spending is far higher than the nominal gains from persuading friends of a successful couple to join up. Given that most users aren't successful, that network effect is tiny.
There's an opposing network effect of *keeping customers unmatched, because this provides gossip and entertainment among friends, which gives them a reason to continue using a service.
We know that string-alongs are a real thing on dating sites - especially, but not exclusively, for men.
There's also a small but not negligible subculture of (mostly) women who use dates for free meals and get a good return on their monthly subscription.
And a lot of sites - not just Tinder - overlap hook-up culture with people seeking marriage and kids. If anything the former is a more popular option now.
Wrong claim: "There's an opposing network effect of *keeping customers unmatched, because this provides gossip and entertainment among friends, which gives them a reason to continue using a service."
No, this is implying they are doing it with intention - which they dont even have to insist on! They can keep the users, because matching based on an app does not work for 99.99% real cases. So if you treat them well, they will stay anyway, unless your product is shitty.
I don't think this counterargument holds. It's a hell of a lot easier to get a customer who already paid once to pay a second time than it is to get a customer to pay for the first time. Also, I think most people are well aware that by and large, dating apps have a very low success rate for the majority of their users. People use them anyway.
Since your marginal costs per customer are veeeery low, you can hammer thm with 50-60% discount, which ends up on most platforms at 10 - 20 bucks per month, and if you make 3 - 4 dinners, you get much more out of it than an evening in the cinema
And to add to that- seeing a real world friend go on dates or start a relationship because of an app is better than any marketing you could ever buy.
If you want to drive top-of-the-funnel growth, make the product good even it causes some folks to drop out once they’re in a relationship.
They don't need that. What option do most young people have?
Most young men can't approach women, most young women can't handle being approached and we don't have shared spaces where people can get to know each other and pair off anymore. Young people think the apps are dumpster fires, they hate them, but the alternative is sadly worse.
> The vast majority of the platform's growth will come from new users...
Userbase expansion is new users less leaving users for a time period. So there are two factors, not just "new users."
In any case, Match Group apps are well into the phase of focusing on extracting the most money possible from their paying users as opposed to gaining new users.
After all, infinite users are useless to a company, even if it costs nothing to support them, if none of them pay.
This is exactly why I always make it a point to discourage my friends from using dating apps.
A dating app that is effective at solving the problem it is ostensibly designed to solve will never make money as people will be matched quickly and will have no need to pay for the service. So clearly no profitable dating app is good at matching people.
I'm of the opinion that using a tool that is constantly setting you up for romantic failure and rejection in the name of keeping you on its platform is a really good way to wreck your mental health.
On the other hand, if it was so easy to find a match, then we wouldn't be trying to use dating apps. I think it is just generally hard to find a good match for many people these days.
The other side of that is that many people are simply terrible and really unsuitable for being in any sort of long term stable relationship. No dating app can solve that problem (unless maybe they incorporate mental health and life coaching services, which seems kind of sketchy as a combination). Whether the situation has gotten generally harder these days is impossible to say but I certainly don't envy those still in the dating pool.
Facebook dating has different incentives.
Bingo. This is the effect that keeps (a) incumbent platforms in place, (b) users on those platforms, (c) and potentially new platforms from coming online and offering a "superior" experience.
This is pretty obviously addressed in the article. The premise of the article is why don't users migrate to better platforms when the large ones are extracting as much money as possible (because the incentives are misaligned)
I'm not sure it's purely malicious. It might just be the result of optimizing for engagement metrics
Please don't use HN for ideological battle like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I think Japan did this last year https://japandaily.jp/japans-government-initiatives-to-boost...
By far absolutely _not_ true:
- i have worked in the space for some years for two of the biggest platforms in my country
- dating sites track a lot KPI and discuss them and test them thoroughly
- the KPI "do-more-users-leave-our-platform-earlier-if-our-matching-algo-is-just-too-good" - I promise: In alle the years, this question WAS NEVER - NEVER!!!!!!! - raised, regardless wich Manager or which Exec. This metric isnt even debated.
And here comes why: the most important thing to form a relationship are "technicals" which can NEVER be introduced into an app. There may be some advances in genomic matching, but no body deployed this so far and it wont happen unless Apple watch as a gene encoding module.
There are one night stands, there some marriges (we had a "winners board" in our office), but 99% of all cases when people met, its going to be "failure" (in a sense "no match")
Regardless how good your algo is - it doesnt matter when it comes to a reality check.
Therefore, Dating apps have absolutely no fear of you signing off because you fond someome - its very likely that you will come back soon, second: From operators perspective it would be a good thing if people would tell "i found my match on XYZ", but sine this does happen only super rarely, there are only few such stories.
So - NO: Dating sites do fear someone deleting the account.
(except: you are a startup and have to keep every profile to gain some size)