[derefr]

I’m talking about a game-theoretic dynamic that’s easily observed in real world professions (e.g. plumbers, cleaners, art conservators, etc.), and even in exactly the same industry (human professional matchmakers.) The “presumption” here isn’t really much of a stretch.

It just-so-happens that dating sites don’t currently follow this model, because an external force (Match Group) came in and explicitly chose to consolidate the market into a cartel, where 95% of “competing” dating sites are actually in collusion due to shared ownership. But there’s no reason to expect that situation to last forever, any more than there’s reason to expect the dominance of the currently-dominant social network (MySpace/Facebook/etc.) to last forever.

[michaelmrose]

Actually one would expect the leverage of controlling the market to provide enough funds to pay emerging players multiple times their likely expected result of rolling the dice and trying to compete to continually fend off would be rivals. Absent interference in the market one would not be extremely shocked to see the same dominant players in social media and dating 20 years from now.