[xigoi]

> This assumes that dating sites are able to give everyone great matches, but are somehow holding them back.

From what I’ve heard, OkCupid used to be really good at finding compatible people, then it got deliberately nerfed when sold to Match Group.

[crazygringo]

It's not true. OkC gave the appearance of being really good at finding compatible people, because people would fill out lengthy text profiles, and answer hundreds of survey questions, and you'd get a match score like 85% or 97%.

But if you actually used it, the reality was that a match on paper says next to nothing about chemistry. And overlapping interests or survey questions don't say anything about personality. Except for a few dealbreakers like gender, age range, religion, etc., they didn't actually tell you much.

So OkC switched to prioritizing swiping on photos shortly after Tinder exploded, simply because they're the most effective thing there is for gauging chemistry. At the end of the day, it's way better than the supposed "match score" based on survey questions, or reading lengthy profiles. Not because they were bought by Match, but because it worked better at finding matches.

[y0eswddl]

I thought getting bought by the Tinder people is when OkC became more like Tinder.

And OkC was the best at finding people I'd at the very least be friends with - which is foundational to me anyway. And Hinge loves hiding those profiles behind roses.

[crazygringo]

Its switch to a swiping interface didn't happen until a couple years after Match bought it. And everything became like Tinder, not just Match apps. Because it genuinely worked better.

And yeah I can totally see how the long profiles could be useful for finding friends. But that's not what the site was ever primarily meant for.

The reality is that OkC basically started out for grad students in Brooklyn to be able to find each other, the kind of person who loves writing and reading profiles. But that's not most people, and so as they expanded across the country they shifted to the format that worked better for most people.