[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.