[ksikka]

Dating apps/sites that employ the strategy of "get as much data as possible and match intelligently" have failed to compete for users against Tinder, the dumbest, simplest dating app that hardly does any intelligent matching at all. This implies that it's not the sophistication of a dating app that matters, it's the simplicity and ability to attract a userbase that in turn attracts a larger userbase etc in a virtuous cycle.

[Analemma_]

Tinder is doing a lot more intelligent matching than you think. The CTO of OKCupid (which is owned by the same parent company) was on a podcast a few weeks ago where he briefly discussed some of the algorithmic challenges of Tinder. They include:

- it may not seem like it, but Tinder does try to pick people it thinks are most likely to produce a match, based on-- to be brutally honest-- your attractiveness (as determined by who has swiped for you) and the other person's

- it then orders them approximately from most likely to least likely, but it has to know how often to start over, because eventually as you go down the list you'll eventually start running into people that you're less likely to swipe right on than the people you already passed up

- carefully arranging things so that "super likes" have a reasonable chance of producing a match while also not inundating very attractive people with nothing but super likes from people they will never respond to (which would drive them off the service)

It's a tough challenge and Tinder is not at all a "dumb, simple" dating app.

[pedalpete]

Maybe he missed out on some of the other important things Tinder does on the "addiction" side of things.

When the app first came out (or possibly when you first start using it), the first person is/was always a match. Then they got clever about hiding matches deeper in the swipes.

This triggers addictive behaviour because the "match" reward is inconsistent. Though, clearly, before you start swiping, Tinder knows which matches it is going to present to you. It's a delicate balance to judge how long you will spend swiping, when to show you your match and how to make sure you swipe right a few times to keep the funnel loaded.

[ksikka]

This bolsters the point that the future of online dating is not a computer estimating compatibility with creepy accuracy, it's someone engineering an app to be addicting to get the largest userbase.

[ksikka]

Understood. But they have so far avoided asking the user for structured data that they could use to vastly improve their matches. Clearly it took a back-seat to usability.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "dumb" - I do not mean to imply the Tinder strategy or algorithms are stupid. Just meant that instead of prioritizing matching to the best of their ability, they prioritized usability.

[jakequade]

Do you have a link to the podcast? Would be super keen on listening in :)

[Analemma_]

It was the first episode of “Why’d you push that button”.

[thaeli]

Also, for dating sites in particular, doing an excellent job of matching can be bad for business. Successful matches, especially for users seeking long-term monogamous relationships, mean they stop paying for your service. This is most extreme for the services that are practically marriage brokers, and that's where y ou see the "lots of data" approach most often.

At the other extreme, apps like Grindr and to a slightly lesser degree Tinder aren't hurt by doing "too good" a job, since more of their users don't stop looking because they found one good match.

[Obi_Juan_Kenobi]

Does that argument really hold water?

I'd argue that the market of 'people who are dating' isn't going to be dramatically affected by any particular company, and probably not even by online dating in general. They would have to be stupendously effective at creating long-term monogamous relationships to really move the needle there.

Marriage rates have been declining for decades, and serial monogamy seems to be growing (can't find good quantification of that). Successful dating services don't necessarily cannibalize their market.

My intuition is that providing an effective and enjoyable experience is going to provide far greater returns by gaining market share in a relatively inelastic market.

[fenomas]

> Successful dating services don't necessarily cannibalize their market.

GP is clearly not suggesting that a dating service can be so effective that it depletes the market of single people. They're suggesting that a successful dating service won't retain customers, insofar as customers who find their life partner no longer need dates.

[dogruck]

Possible that you are not giving enough credit to Tinder's algorithm for sorting the profiles that you're presented with? There's a lot of information buried in how you swipe and message and edit.

[ThrustVectoring]

For dating sites, the userbase is pretty much the only thing that matters.