[orangeeater]

> What I'd like to see is an app where you don't get to see any pictures until you've initiated a conversation (of some minimum length) with a person

I doubt many people would use this app. Physical attraction is too important.

If I was going to design a dating app, I would restrict people to having 1-3 (needs testing) likes/conversations at a time. If you start a new conversation, you drop your oldest one, and the person you dropped would be informed.

The idea would be to encourage users to be more discerning and invest more in conversations.

More generally, I reject the "soul mate theory of dating" - I think most people could be happy with most of the people they find interesting/attractive off the bat (and some of the people they don't). But the multitude of options discourages users from investing in a conversation or meeting up and encourages flash-in-the-pan dating strategies. These strategies rarely translate into the long-term relationships that most users claim to be looking for.

I'm not convinced that this idea would be popular. Admittedly it mainly appeals to my sensibilities (I've never been comfortable with "casting a wide net").

[evrydayhustling]

One challenge with this mechanism is leakage to "out-of-band" relationships... Your app can successfully promote a high-investment approach to dating, but users can still try a more promiscuous approach on another app - diluting trust about mutual investment on your app. Starts to sound like some pretty traditional social conflicts about dating cultures!

[laurieg]

I think this would be a very interesting twist on a dating app.

Now we are spoilt for choice on apps like Tinder. Even when you match with someone you have a very strong interest in it's all too easy to keep swiping and have your eyes wander elsewhere.

I do wonder if 'old-fashioned' dating's best feature was that a 'match' only came along rather infrequently.

[the_jeremy]

Similar to what coffee meets bagel does, which restricts you to a pool of 3-5 people per day. swipe left on all of them and you get no matches. It encourages more thinking about compatibility, rather than "if I swipe through 20 more people I can probably get to a really hot one".

It's how I found my current girlfriend, and it's been working really well so far =)