[ToucanLoucan]

This is true and you're right to say it. However much like other problematic software products in the attention economy, I don't know that there's really a solution. By definition: if a dating app (assuming it isn't a hookup one anyway) is doing it's job, it will lose two users with every "success" it achieves. Which means success for the user and success for the company are not just different, they are opposed. An attention-monetizing free service such as needs users, they need user numbers and user engagements, and if they lose users, especially women who are damn hard to get on these platforms in the first place, then they begin to lose value and lose the ability to make money.

And, even if we discard the notion that attention is being monetized, the presence of women as stated is essential to any of these dating apps' long term viability as a business. I think that's why there's this low-level constant outrage that exists with men who use them; they feel de-prioritized and discarded next to their female counterparts in the user base, because fundamentally, these platforms know they don't have to do shit to get male users. They will come, they will stay, regardless of what they're asked to do or deal with, and therefore they are not valuable to the platform and their needs, desires, and preferences are not catered to. As long as they can attract enough women to meet an emotional threshold for prospective male users, they'll come in droves, and probably spend money too.

[jfengel]

I've heard this theory before, and it doesn't make sense to me.

Finding a good match is hard. The vast majority of relationships fail, most of them rather quickly.

I don't think dating apps need to go out of their way to preserve their user base. It sounds as if people believe that there's some perfect matching algorithm that the dating apps refuse to use, lest everybody suddenly get married.

Male and female users do end up being in conflict on dating apps -- the former getting too little attention, the latter getting too much. And the apps are rife with spammers and scammers, which are hard to clear out when the accounts are free. I think that suffices to explain why people get frustrated with dating apps.

[PaulHoule]

I'll say this.

There is a sense that people have gotten fed up with dating apps, here are two articles on it:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/04/datin...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/business/dating-apps-tind...

It's pretty clear here that a huge opportunity exists because here is a fundamental human need. Match and Bumble might not be able to meet it because they are trapped by their business model (see Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation) and have a lot of accumulated ill will.

I think AI is a factor in the burnout, the fact is that ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot can do a lot better at ingratiating people than most of us, if the average person used a chatbot as their wingman and they'd probably do better. Personally I ask Copilot for advice on this sort of thing a lot, the act of putting my thoughts into words is helpful, the advice is as good as you'd get from a lot of people, and it feels good.

You can see this as a hellscape of profiles that look like they were written by ChatGPT and endless spam and fraud like Ashley Madison but with today's NLP a site could get a lot of insight into people's behavior and put some structure in. Right now I am trying to deepen a relationship and practicing doing little nice things for people because I don't have good habits in this area -- if a dating site is going to be successful people need to have a P.M.A. and need to be cultivating behaviors and attitudes that are helpful in relationships. Something like that could benefit you even if you don't get a match but if you do get a match is going to multiply the value you get from it.

[jfengel]

if a dating site is going to be successful people need to have a P.M.A.

PMA?

I can say that women report over and over that the men they meet often have very poor relationship skills. Perhaps that's not surprising: the men with good relationship skills are in relationships for a while, but men with bad relationship skills will be back after one date.

[brokenalgo]

You explained exactly why apps should be apps and not business.