[MiddleEndian]

My solution: Group people by zip code, give distance ranges based on the two users' zip codes.

Within same zip code or two zip codes that border each other? "0 feet to (farthest distance between any two points within zip code(s))"

Zip codes farther apart? "(closest distance between any two points within zip code) to (farthest distance between any two points within zip code)"

No need to limit queries, no need to fuzz anything. No way to triangulate unless one person happens to live at the corner of three or more zip codes, in which case you could just pin them to one zip code as long as they are within a certain range of that zip code.

In areas where zip codes are unusually large (Alaska?) or unusually small (NYC?), you can substitute in some other chunk metric.

[tharkun__]

I think we went over this when the telegram version of this hit HN a while back.

It just doesn't work.

For zip codes for example: There are single street zip codes (aka postal codes) all over Canada. And I'm not talking a large boulevard that goes across town. Literally one street that I can see one end from the other on easily.

[MiddleEndian]

Sure, but you could detect zip codes that are under a certain length and/or area, keep combining them until they are large enough. Zip codes are just a starting point, the concept would still apply. Group people into sufficiently large chunks, only reveal their chunk. It could be a grid instead if that makes more sense, but I imagine zip codes make use of borders along rivers and other forms of convenience.

[tharkun__]

There's usually always a catch.

Your try to make it less easy to find someone also makes it less good for the intended use case. Suddenly the app can only tell you if someone is in the same town or not because we combined the heck out of zips.

But the you realize that at the edges of whatever combination you chose you can find if someone is on one side or another of those areas. And these areas have borders on many sides so many cells to triangulate with and play the "are you here or on the other side".

So basically both requirements fight each other and guess which one won and what the results are.

[MiddleEndian]

Yeah it seems that in this case, Bumble obviously went with exact locations and failed to fuzz it.

It's been a long time since I've done online dating, and back then long-form OKCupid profiles were the norm, but instead of a distance radius, I always wished could draw a shape of interest roughly correlated with my local subway map and places that were convenient to walk to.

[kilotaras]

> There are single street zip codes (aka postal codes) all over Canada

Screw that, in UK zip codes can be less than single building.

My zip code corresponds to flats 90-180 in my building.