Tinder will introduce voluntary ID verification to reduce catfishing incidents

rkangel 2021-08-17 15:38:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Can someone explain to me how Tinder has such a bot problem?

I'm not a Tinder user, but the impression I get is that there is an epidemic of bots such that people have to start conversations with silly "Captcha" type tests. Is this impression correct and there is a bot problem? And if so, how has Tinder not fixed that already?! It's not a particularly hard problem to kill off all but the most determined bots. Or are they not motivated to do so due to it inflating user numbers?

Teknoman117 2021-08-17 17:10:05 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's a big problem. 99% of matches for me (a straight white male, late 20's) are bots or people pushing some onlyfans account.

EricMausler 2021-08-18 01:19:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I am an automation hobbyist and single guy on tinder, and I think I can crack the code on this one: Activity difference

On top of you doing the math on how active a bot is verse regular humans, some additional probably related factors are: - Bot accounts use attractive photos - Bot accounts can claim to be anywhere - Bot accounts are often new accounts, and new accounts get boosted - The longer you use the app, you run out of actual people to swipe on, but the new bot accounts continue to pop up at the same rate - making their % of your total swipe pool increase over time. - Bots might just be masking the reality that there isnt many people in your area using the app lately.

All that said, in my region of NY I would not consider it a problem at all. maybe this is not a problem for me because my area is very populated, so there's a lot of actual people on the app.

ramesh31 2021-08-17 20:56:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>Can someone explain to me how Tinder has such a bot problem?

It's a feature. All dating apps/websites go through the same 3 part lifecycle. At any given time, there is only one "hip" service that everyone is using and that attracts all of the tier 1 members (i.e. attractive women) to use exclusively. Right now, that app is Hinge. Before Hinge took off, it was Bumble. And before that it was Tinder. The app that occupies this top space is generally able to get there by optimizing for the female experience, to the complete detriment of the male experience because men will always go where the attractive women are, and they will put up with anything because of that.

As a new service comes along and takes all the tier 1 users, the previous front runner drops to the second part of its' lifecycle. This is where there's still a modicum of tier 1 users left, enough to give an impression of vitality to the community and continue pulling in the new users (desperate single men) who will pay for the service's extra features in hopes of finding someone. Bumble currently occupies this space. At this second part of the lifecycle, there becomes a strong incentive to start balancing out the UX optimization between male and female, because you're no longer in the growth stage and need to start extracting revenue.

Finally, once a new service again comes along that displaces the current number one, the original number one drops to the third part of its' lifecycle. This is where Tinder is now. At that point, it has completely lost relevance to all tier 1 users, but it's able to continue along in a zombified state based on its' previous reputation and the purposefully allowed proliferation of bots that create an illusion of vitality. This is honestly where dating apps make the most money, even if the service itself is terrible. You have no mandate to continue innovating or providing good customer service, and you can totally optimize for the male experience (which is far more profitable) because there are no real women left.

source: Worked for $large_dating_app in the mid-2010s

crtasm 2021-08-17 23:40:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Isn't Tinder aimed mainly at hookups and Bumble/Hinge at relationships? While I've not used any of them it feels surprising to hear that most of the attractive women on Tinder moved to Hinge and then again to Bumble.

As an aside, I'm curious if there's still any dating websites worth spending time on (no phone app install required).

ramesh31 2021-08-18 00:15:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>As an aside, I'm curious if there's still any dating websites worth spending time on (no phone app install required).

For the most part no, but it depends on your age. Older people still use Match and OKCupid a bit. But anyone under 40 is on Hinge or Bumble.

EricMausler 2021-08-18 01:20:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Bumble has a website UI

somedude895 2021-08-17 18:42:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm in Europe and 2 or so years ago I'd get a ton of bot matches on Tinder. I've been using it again earlier this year and the bots were gone, so it seems they are doing something about it, but it's cat and mouse for sure. Just look at Blizzard and their botting issues in World of Warcraft. It's not a trivial problem it seems.

whimsicalism 2021-08-17 17:06:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think that the Tinder experience is very non-homogenous, so some may have a problem with bots and others don't.

notyourday 2021-08-17 17:26:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> And if so, how has Tinder not fixed that already?! It's not a particularly hard problem to kill off all but the most determined bots. Or are they not motivated to do so due to it inflating user numbers?

Most of bots pay Tinder, which is how they get the "unlimited likes", ability to change location and ability to pull those that "liked" them. Cleaning up bots will wipe out a significant portion of tinder revenue.

bob33212 2021-08-17 18:07:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Some percentage of the users may be OK with not knowing if there are bots. Get a few attractive "people" to match with you, get a self esteem boost and move on with your day. And there is the lottery element. What if this one isn't a bot and actually picked me out of the thousands of other options.

notyourday 2021-08-17 18:39:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This does not answer why Tinder does not get rid of bots. Bots running on paid accounts does.

bob33212 2021-08-17 20:44:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes it does, it increases daily usage

notyourday 2021-08-17 21:40:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Tinder is money printing machine via subscriptions. It does not give a two cents about daily usage metrics popular among VC supported or advertiser centric companies that don't have a product its users want to pay for.

bob33212 2021-08-17 23:17:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

They care about those metrics because they know the conversion rate on those users.

rchaud 2021-08-17 17:58:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Tinder's UX is about delivering the illusion of choice. Swiping through an endless carousel of potential companions keeps users on the app.

Whether they're real or not is the user's problem. Worst case scenario, they get fed up and go to OkCupid, which has the same parent company, and the same dehumanizing swipe based UI. Or they could go to Match.com, which I think is the parent company.

MiddleEndian 2021-08-17 19:57:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's been about a decade since I last used OKCupid but I remember really enjoying it. Wacky quizzes and questions, fun usernames, long profiles, trying to find people who had both a high match percentage and enemy percentage for potentially hilarious but exhausting conversations and dates, etc.

Sad to hear that now it's a Tinder clone with swiping, forced real names, short profiles for mobile, and such.

stevekemp 2021-08-18 01:58:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Speaking as somebody who met his wife on OKCupid, 10+ years ago, a lot of that stuff has now gone away.

You can write a long profile, but in order to message somebody you have to match tinder-style. The quizzes are gone, the interests are gone, and the journals are gone too.

(There is the ability to send an "intro" message, which shows up to people who haven't matched, but it is hard to discover as a recipient.)

Where I am there are way way way more people on Tinder as a result I think.

FooBarBizBazz 2021-08-17 19:13:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Interesting how much of human mating falls under a small number of brands controlled by a single company.

Also funny how problematized dating outside of those approved channels has become.

It is, ultimately, monopoly control over human reproduction.

Nextgrid 2021-08-17 14:51:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm all for more safety and would be happy to use this if it wasn't for the fact that Tinder is a typical Silicon Valley "growth and engagement" operation that does not have your best interests at heart (if you find a partner, you stop "engaging" with the app).

My concern here is that this kind of verification will become mandatory and will then be used to ban people from behaving the "wrong" way from a company perspective - not "engaging" enough with it, avoiding the dark patterns, not giving it the permissions it requests, etc.

chrisseaton 2021-08-17 16:51:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> if you find a partner, you stop "engaging" with the app

But presumably you recommend it to others as a successful place to find a partner?

nonameiguess 2021-08-17 17:16:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Don't you need an account even if it isn't verifiably tied to your legal identity? Why wouldn't they be able to ban you for not engaging enough already if they wanted to do that?

Nextgrid 2021-08-17 18:13:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

But re-creating an account is trivial and only requires a clean device, new IP address (new SIM) and phone number.

Tying that to a real ID would mean you'd need a new real identity and/or make fake documents which is illegal in most places.

dntrkv 2021-08-17 16:54:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> ban people from behaving the "wrong" way from a company perspective - not "engaging" enough with it, avoiding the dark patterns, not giving it the permissions it requests, etc.

When has that ever happened?

yjftsjthsd-h 2021-08-17 17:16:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

https://gizmodo.com/okcupid-tells-users-not-to-use-firefox-b... is close enough

Nextgrid 2021-08-17 18:12:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's typical when you use alternative clients for hostile social media services such as Facebook, Instagram, etc.

lupire 2021-08-17 18:38:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If you don't like Tinder, maybe don't use it?

gizdan 2021-08-17 12:53:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Weren't they adding fake accounts to get the numbers up in the first place?

sneak 2021-08-17 13:03:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That's phase 1, phase 2 is then pulling up the ladder and increasing quality.

It works the same in every country.

norov 2021-08-17 13:22:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Just like how social media companies suddenly grow a spine and do something about bots and troll behavior only after they become large and successful.

m-p-3 2021-08-17 14:02:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There's a chicken and egg issue with the rise of a social media.

You can't get people to join if there isn't a lot of people, and there isn't a lot of people because nobody joins.

Faking the participants 'till you make it is cheating, compared to an organic growth that rarely happens at the inception of a new platform.

yepthatsreality 2021-08-17 21:13:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don’t agree with this. There is only a chicken and egg issue if the people joining are the product. You can’t sell product data if it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of product to be sold. If social networks required paid membership, small amount of total users wouldn’t be a bug it’d be a feature.

m-p-3 2021-08-17 21:27:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I personally don't see a social media platform that would succeed through a mandatory paid membership. The main interest in social media to the majority of user is the reach and read a large amount of users, and keeping it small and exclusive might not be an attractive feature to a majority.

yepthatsreality 2021-08-18 19:27:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I agree and disagree. One hand it’s free to signup and post whatever to my personal account and like a few pages. However the “reach” argument breaks down when the social media company starts filtering what a I do and don’t see. If I decide I want public reach too then I have to buy an ad space from the social media company for that reach. So if that’s true then the reach you get is a lie and you have to pay for membership anyways.

toss1 2021-08-17 14:01:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We wish.

The amount they are doing about bots, trolls, and outright state-funded dezinformatsiya and active measures warfare being waged on their platforms is only the absolute minimum so that they can claim to be "doing something", and not appear to be fully and actively allied with the assaults on democracy.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 2021-08-17 14:28:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Match Group has a long history of sketchy behavior and absolutely should not be trusted.

paperoli 2021-08-17 22:53:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

After tinder came out my best friend was the first person I knew to have the app. He excitedly told me he was chatting to someone attractive and showed me the messages. Though they seemed to have already had a whole conversation it gave me a strange feeling. I told him I thought it wasn't a real person but wasn’t sure. So we sent the exact same messages that he had sent before and after getting exactly the same response we knew it was a robot. I think about this from time to time as this AI basically passed the Turing test and seemed to be on tinder with no goal to scam, and as dating apps were so new and rare that scams had not yet been formulated. The bots that followed in subsequent years were never anywhere near as polished or convincing.

beecafe 2021-08-18 00:31:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The attractive person probably thought you were an AI too once you started repeating the messages

paperoli 2021-08-18 09:46:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We did do more rigorous testing after that which confirmed the hypothesis

durnygbur 2021-08-17 14:44:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

People will give high resolution photo of their national id to some shady American media group?

speedgoose 2021-08-17 14:46:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For sex, anything is possible.

durnygbur 2021-08-17 14:48:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

But Tinder doesn't provide sex, barely even catalyses real life sexless encounters.

speedgoose 2021-08-17 14:56:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I know a few people who met through tinder. Some had sex supposedly, some got married and became parents which is a good proof of them having sex from my non expert point of view.

tshaddox 2021-08-17 16:56:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I met my wife on Tinder. But I also used the road network to meet her. What really counts as “catalyzing”?

jraph 2021-08-17 15:25:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I thought children were brought by storks, what is the link with sex?

rnjesus 2021-08-17 17:10:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

humans must perform the “sex” ritual as a sacrifice to the stork gods, it seems. i’ve yet to determine why they often try to summon the spirit of their fathers repeatedly through incantation, though

jraph 2021-08-17 21:00:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That's good to know. One more question: there is no risk to summon the stork gods while being alone without signing some documents, right?

rnjesus 2021-08-18 04:54:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

hm, a fair and puzzling question. if you practice this strange magic alone, perhaps try shouting for your father’s spirit to descend upon you, loudly and repeatedly, and then report back your experience so i may add it to my research. (note: it might be best to open your door/window while you do this. being in the presence of others seems to make the ritual more successful)

2021-08-17 21:14:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

istorical 2021-08-17 15:59:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It does if you follow rules #1 and #2.

rchaud 2021-08-17 18:01:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It does, but it depends heavily on physical attractiveness. Hence the catfishing.

I've had success on other apps, but a big fat zero on Tinder.

sushid 2021-08-17 19:59:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Looks like a user error to me.

notyourday 2021-08-17 18:48:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

In any major population market Tinder provides the easiest way to find any sort of willing partners, which is exactly why it is the major platform for bots.

that_guy_iain 2021-08-17 17:22:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

People will give details over to drug addicts who chap their door. A multi-million dollar company? They'll have zero problems getting that info.

codetrotter 2021-08-17 13:42:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/27/tinder-is-now-giving-out-blue...

Isn’t the verification they are already doing sufficient type of voluntary verification?

stevekemp 2021-08-17 14:00:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've noticed a lot of profiles near me are "verified", so I believe the user is real and matches the pictures somewhat.

The biggest problem with tinder, at the moment, seems to be people using the "passport" system. They pretend to be local, but really they're hundreds/thousands of miles away. I wish that was more explicit and obvious.

codetrotter 2021-08-17 14:36:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> The biggest problem with tinder, at the moment, seems to be people using the "passport" system

Yeah tell me about it :p I live in Norway and about the only people I regularly match with are people from South America. And in a way that’s neat, they are nice people and I want to go there some day. But I really wish I’d be shown to more people near me so I can actually meet someone IRL and have it turn into something meaningful. I cannot afford to travel right now and even if I could, COVID-19 is still making it difficult.

All I want is to meet some women, hang out with them and find someone that we both enjoy being around each other.

I’ve had very few matches with people actually from my country in the past year and in every year prior.

I’ve been to a grand total of one date in the past year. And I’ve had proper text conversations with maybe a handful of people from my country at most.

Maybe it’s a sign that I should earn some money that would allow me to leave this country for somewhere else, idk.

One thing is for sure, Tinder is just not my arena in this country. So I’ve uninstalled it for like the 20th time. We’ll see how long it goes before I install it again, so I can continue meaninglessly swiping on people from my country that are not going to even see my profile, just like it always is save for a few people a year.

stevekemp 2021-08-17 14:59:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I prefer OkCupid, because people have space to write a lot more, and you get a better idea of personality. On Tinder it is all about the photos, and little about the personality until you've matched.

But it has to be said I've had far more meetups with tinder than anything else. Here in Helsinki it seems to be pretty popular. Maybe I stand out because I'm a foreigner, wearing a kilt, but I guess I've been quite lucky in that I get matches pretty frequently.

(Though I go through phases where I ignore it for a few months, then use it for a few hours every day in a week.)

l33tman 2021-08-17 14:39:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It doesn't work that way, it just makes you come up in the "target" destination's searches but it still will say "678 km away" etc. So it's explicit and obvious to all who sees your profile.

It's a good feature, you can match with people a few weeks before going to another destination or on holiday etc.

stevekemp 2021-08-17 14:57:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm not sure that it does all the time, or perhaps people are turning off the distance setting?

I've certainly matched people who are far away, despite no desire to do so.

moistbar 2021-08-17 14:05:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Why do they even allow that? It seems counter to the whole point of an app designed around finding someone nearby to bang.

mholm 2021-08-17 14:07:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Because many users are on tinder just for validation, and getting matches makes them feel good. They're willing to pay for it, so Match is willing to take their money at the cost of UX

joncrane 2021-08-17 14:10:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Sometimes people want to match with someone in the town they're visiting (or moving to) soon.

Other times, people in poorer countries are trying to match with people in richer countries. Think of Tinder as acting as a broker in a situation that sometimes people call "mail order bride."

wombat-man 2021-08-17 14:29:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It kinda makes sense if you plan to be somewhere in a week or something and you want to try to link up with someone local.

newbamboo 2021-08-17 14:09:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

More users.

fidesomnes 2021-08-17 14:33:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

No the biggest problem are snapchat spam profiles. someone is paying girls and or fake girls to create snapchat profiles for enough money to justify creating tens of thousands of fake profiles a day.

marton_s 2021-08-17 17:24:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

As the article does not explain it, I had to look up:

> Catfishing is a deceptive activity where a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service, usually targeting a specific victim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfishing

MeinBlutIstBlau 2021-08-17 13:00:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Online dating has basically become a joke anyway. I've met several women on it but more often than not, it never feels right. It's like the expectation of the event is to pursue a relationship. Not to actually have fun doing what you want to.

the_only_law 2021-08-17 13:05:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> but more often than not, it never feels right

I’ve talked about this before, but the entire culture of dating apps feels like everyone is putting up a facade and you have to too if you want to play.

JohnWhigham 2021-08-17 13:52:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It wholly mass-commoditizes something that has never been mass-commoditized (and should never be) before. When this happens, you're often left with the raw economics of the situation. And this is what's happened with dating. And hoo boy, do people not like talking about it either. It displays a lot of uncomfortable truths about men and women's places in societies. If anything it should be discussed more, but emotions often get in the way.

imbnwa 2021-08-17 14:46:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That discussion is the one Kevin Samuels is leading in the Black community where these problems are even more magnified

thickened 2021-08-17 15:45:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Started watching some of his videos. Very interesting and, in earnest, doesn't seem to be any different in other communities. Amplified in some ways in particular because he brings up the incarceration rates.

imbnwa 2021-08-17 16:30:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Never heard him bring up incarceration rates (link? perhaps content I've never seen), he tends to highlight the stats around children-out-of-wedlock, ratio of unmarried to married Black women, and amount of unmarried, childless middle-class Black men. The first and second issues being fairly specific to the Black community.

thickened 2021-08-17 17:27:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't know the exact one to be honest - it's one of the 15+ minute ones where he has a caller and he takes apart why their expectations are over the top and they should reconsider. He lists statistics like, so-and-so % of black men earn less than $X, so-and-so % of black men are imprisoned, and so on. Probably one of the ones that expects a $500k/yr guy.

For anyone who hasn't watched his YT vids, take 30 min and go through some of his shorter clips. It's quite interesting what the expectations out there are.

redis_mlc 2021-08-18 00:07:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I haven't seen KS talk much about incarceration rates, but that's because his focus is on bw, and bm who are successful businessmen.

What KS brings up specifically about the black community is that bw don't respect (ie. despise) bm, which doesn't happen in other groups, and is really the focus of his show. (His bw guests invariably admit that at the end of the discussion.)

lotsofpulp 2021-08-17 14:48:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Tinder should also incorporate credit reports and probabilities of future income based on occupation. Can probably automatically generate a forecast profit and loss statement for various scenarios.

jdminhbg 2021-08-17 17:19:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Relationships have in fact been literally commoditized for most of human history, through dowries, bride prices, etc.

lamp987 2021-08-17 17:51:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Doesnt mean we should return to that horrible state.

jrumbut 2021-08-17 13:56:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I have heard this bothers many people, but I never saw the problem. I always thought about it in terms of putting your best foot forward and expecting most others to do the same.

Once you get to know someone then it's a better time to talk about all the frustrations and disappointments of life.

My experience might be out of date though, from other comments it sounds like online dating has gotten harder in recent years.

the_only_law 2021-08-17 14:04:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

In real life I think it’s easier to get a feel for people outside what they’re advertising and also it’s not a swipe-right/swipe-left scenario where if you don’t like the immediate presentation of a person you never have to interact with them again. Then ofc there’s the old cliches about all the information lost in purely online communication versus in-person.

Dating apps just feel like I’m looking at the same few people over and over again with the outliers being seen mostly as negative. Nobody looks particularly interesting or like someone I’d get along with, whereas in real life interactions I don’t find myself filtering people this harshly. This is an issue I’ve heard of from people of all genders/sexuality’s. It just feels like a worse version of job hunting. In fact this analogy seems almost too perfect.

You “apply” on an online platform with a low response rate, with a number of the “applicants” effectively treating it as a numbers game just to get something. Many of the responses you do get are rejections. Some may end up eventually getting a positive response and either win, finding a good person for them, or end up in a less ideal situation. Meanwhile everyone tells you that this is the worst way to go about things and that the right way is to have an established network you can reach out to.

jrumbut 2021-08-17 15:04:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Hey that really makes sense to me now! I think for me the curiosity aspect balanced out what you're talking about. Instead of looking for a good match right away, I would scan for anything interesting or serious red flags and then start talking and see how it went. Of course, that wouldn't work for everyone.

The job hunt comparison is perfect though, since I have exactly the feelings about job seeking online that you expressed about dating. I would have never applied to the job I'm at now, which I love, based on the job description online. It was really eye opening, a lot of the best organizations to work for are the worst at recruiting. It may be because they retain people so they don't have to do it as often, I am three years in and still the new guy.

MeinBlutIstBlau 2021-08-17 19:03:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

how many online dates have you been on? Ive met various women and it always feels like a job. Like, we both want to date. Yet many women just wanna be friends first. Thats not the point here. If anythinf is basicalky become "opposite sex meetup."

I have since stopped. I dont use the apps anymore. I want to meet someone naturally. It eliminates that pointless friend phase without feeling obligated early on.

Also, dont get me started on Snapchat and snapscores.

jrumbut 2021-08-18 02:48:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I went on a lot, or at least I thought it was a lot, before I met my wife online.

My usage ended years ago though, while I connected more on a friendship level with a lot of the people I met they all started as dates. I've heard from a few people that's changed and become more ambiguous.

Maybe there needs to be a new system for more serious daters.

nathanaldensr 2021-08-17 13:23:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Agreed. It amplifies the worst aspects of human existence.

lotsofpulp 2021-08-17 14:45:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Fundamentally, I do not think it is tenable for a mating system to offer participants unlimited choice (or the appearance of). Also, pictures drastically reduce the number of dimensions in which you can be attracted to someone. For example, in real life, you may become attracted to someone due to their voice, or other properties, or simply repeatedly seeing them.

The other problem is that it lays bare your “value” in each interaction, and it could be damaging to one’s ego. Flirting in real life gives both parties a chance to escalate with plausible deniability.

The best system I have seen though is when matchmakers who roughly know both people, and can vouch for both parties’ trustworthiness do the matchmaking. They will have the ability to objectively put two similarly “valued” people together, and possibly not only along one metric (e.g. looks).

Of course, this gets more and more rare as the size of one’s social networks gets smaller or has fewer overlaps.

whimsicalism 2021-08-17 17:08:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I do not think it is tenable for a mating system to offer participants unlimited choice (or the appearance of).

Why?

lotsofpulp 2021-08-17 17:23:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It feels like people try aim very high in the candidates they pursue, and in the process, they end up missing the window for when their value is at its peak, and hence have to sell themselves for less than what they could have gotten earlier. Or end up simply choosing not to sell at all.

IamAdog93109 2021-08-17 17:56:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

From my perspective, not OP's:

At one point I read somewhere in some pop-psych book that people naturally tend towards symmetric engagements. I think this particular remark was speaking on the point of physical attraction. And from a logical standpoint this makes sense at a baseline (wherein all other things are equal). But say, your photo shows a 3/10 on the highly arbitrary meter of attraction. You're presented with a battery of perceived-people [1], these are accounts, with photos of humans who one trusts has another human at the other end that is accurately represented by the profile details. You're not immediately confronted with the fact that some people are literally only engaging in the system to accumulate matches, bots, advertisers, scammers; one naturally places their trust in the system. This trust allows the user to reasonably assume any matches made are reflective of their value. In reality about 2/3rds (anecdotal) are indiscriminate. This feedback can duly be intuited to move the personal perception of self-assessed attraction from a 3 to say a 5 or greater, and generate unrealistic expectations in the domain of physical attraction. What's more is, I'd conjecture that the external valuations are more impactful than self-assessed attraction, that weighting strongly contributes to the big picture assessment of the mating landscape. The more feedback from indiscriminate sources the greater the pull. Physical attraction is a huge component of mate selection, so this component alone can raise an individual's standards far beyond their standing power.

Then there's the perception of the overall pool in every dimension. If one is given literally thousands of options and even the faintest glimmer of the hope ideal selection, they're left to pick and choose in a loop that likely won't satisfy. And if you apply the idea of hypergamy to the situation it becomes even more perverse, and this stands to destabilize what might actually become tangible by offering unrealistic prospects via the indiscriminate perceived-people. Think of the situation where a 3/10 ends up with a 3/10 but is more or less told they're capable of netting a 5-7/10, will they realistically settle for that? I suspect not, and this distortion makes their actual prospect pool seem far less appealing and creates a perverted and highly disposable form of relationship. And then you can lump in all of the economics, education, lifestyle, practical accessibility, plans and desires, etc... as further complicating the distortions offered up by the infinite choice fallacy.

[1] This should be read as: bots, advertisers, influencers, etc... and facades.

lotsofpulp 2021-08-17 18:04:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nice explanation of another part I did not think about!

> I'd conjecture that the external valuations are more impactful than self-assessed attraction, that weighting strongly contributes to the big picture assessment of the mating landscape.

This is why I think family/friends matchmakers are so valuable. They are able to ascribe more objective view of the higher probabilities of the type of person you would be able to land, and hence show you only those people (since their credibility is also on the line).

MeinBlutIstBlau 2021-08-17 19:04:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It makes vanity become a purpose on top of things like Instagram.

toxik 2021-08-17 13:14:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I just want to provide counter data here, and I know many others who met their longterm partners on Tinder actually.

willis936 2021-08-17 13:30:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Same. I live a happy life with a very close relationship with my significant other.

I spent years going on dates and refining a charming persona, but that was the means to the end. Companionship is far more fulfilling than thin ego boosts, but you'll never find a partner unless you're willing to put in effort to become attractive to many potential partners and then attempting relationships. Sure, it's a facade and not who you are in your pure, unrefined, mammalian form, but it's a good version of yourself.

None of this is particularly revolutionary; it's just how courtship and mating works with mammals. Tinder is just the lubricant.

jschwartzi 2021-08-17 14:18:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What age bracket did you fall into at the time? I’ve found from talking to various people that dating apps like Tinder are great if you’re young but turn into a horror show after about 35.

I think there’s a winnowing effect as you age out of the app. So it may not be that they’re all bad or good but rather that you have to seek your audience elsewhere as you age out of the apps. I think this is probably true for anyone looking for a relationship.

whimsicalism 2021-08-17 17:09:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> What age bracket did you fall into at the time? I’ve found from talking to various people that dating apps like Tinder are great if you’re young but turn into a horror show after about 35.

I think this is just dating in general. People that are broadly attractive are more likely to not be still dating at 35 compared to people who are not as broadly attractive.

jschwartzi 2021-08-17 21:42:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It wasn’t physical attractiveness at all, but rather that older people on dating apps tended to be bad people. They had personality defects and bad attitudes.

whimsicalism 2021-08-17 21:55:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I didn't say anything specific about physical attractiveness in my comment, you just read that in.

timemct 2021-08-17 13:33:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

To add a data point to this, I'm happily married to someone I met on Tinder. Without the two of us using dating apps, there's a near zero chance that we would've met.

wombat-man 2021-08-17 14:30:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It definitely happens, but personally I feel like it's so much easier to get a feel for people irl. I still use apps like Tinder, but it's a high noise to signal ratio for me. A lot of times the vibe is just off when we meet up and I can't really explain why.

kaesar14 2021-08-17 13:46:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Agreed, and according to this data: https://www.statista.com/chart/20822/way-of-meeting-partner-... it's now the most common way of meeting a partner.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 2021-08-17 14:24:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That doesn't mean it is actually good, it just means that there is a lack of alternatives for meeting people. Society seems to be trending towards less and less interaction with other people.

toxik 2021-08-17 14:35:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This seems like a fairly negative assessment of the facts. I think many people turn to online dating voluntarily, not as some sort of last ditch effort to find a partner. Au contraire, the people I found in the typical settings where you meet new people like bars, night clubs, and doing my hobbies, tended to be a very particular kind of person. I would never have found my current partner in any of those places, and I know the same to be true for many of my friends.

Online dating is just increasing your dating surface area by 10-100x fold.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 2021-08-17 14:53:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I guess I have a very different experience. I consistently found that online dating (especially Tinder) felt, for lack of a better word, fake, and weirdly like job hunting only worse. The only reason I ever bothered was because nobody seems to do the kinds of things where people used to meet their significant others anymore. People can't even be assed to make plans these days for fuck sake. Personally, I find the whole thing so tedious and terrible that it isn't even worth it.

kaesar14 2021-08-17 18:03:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

And in my experience I've met my current and loving partner on an app, as have many of my friends. The fact that the majority of couples now meet online (it's actually higher than my graph says, as it counts people who link on an app and then meet at a bar as part of the bar and restaurant category) must mean something is working, for large groups of people.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 2021-08-17 18:26:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> something is working, for large groups of people.

Yeah, it's called having a mating instinct. People will put up with all sorts of horribleness to satisfy it.

kaesar14 2021-08-17 18:50:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I mean, I guess? I find it nice having a dedicated channel knowing the person on the other side is single and actively looking for some sort of connection. Treating it as a spontaneous connection the same way you would meeting someone at a coffee shop to get to the first date stage seems to work fine.

telotortium 2021-08-18 00:10:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Same - happily married to someone I met on Tinder. We matched on Coffee Meets Bagel just afterward, so even better.

nkrisc 2021-08-17 14:10:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Isn’t finding a relationship why most people date?

Sure some people are just looking for a fling but I’d be willing to bet money most people who date are looking for a relationship and eventually marriage.

knuthsat 2021-08-17 13:29:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Interesting, from the experience of my friends it sounds like they use it mostly to have fun (they use it when traveling to have a one night stand, find new friends in their home town).

Both men and women.

Those that wanted marriage and kids already have that.

MeinBlutIstBlau 2021-08-17 19:09:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've since realized I'm just not destined for a relationship since I'm way to self motivated and willing to change. I'm not ugly either. I just can't stand how most women in my area are either boring socialites that have no skills, overweight, or are just a shackle. I haven't given up, I just found myself alone and I'm happy with it. I figured being with someone might make it feel different but it definitely does not.

CapmCrackaWaka 2021-08-17 13:52:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Basically all of my friends (myself included) met their significant other online. We just got married last weekend. When you look at the statistics, it clearly works for a very large portion of the population.

Grakel 2021-08-17 13:09:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Single mom here, on a weight loss journey, my four kids are my whole world, tired of playing games, looking for a real man for a serious long term relationship ONLY. I have no particular interests or characteristics.

mrkurt 2021-08-17 13:31:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ugh, this is so mean spirited and gross to post.

minikites 2021-08-17 13:37:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's telling that the subject of their mockery is a woman and not a man.

mholm 2021-08-17 14:20:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is because the poster is interested in women. Tinder does not expose you to your own peer group, so you do not have a chance to see the patterns that people fall into. I can guarantee there's some version on tinder men that mentions a divorce, smoking weed, and 'here for something no strings attached'

wincy 2021-08-17 13:54:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

High value man here, the loves of my life are playing World of Warcraft, eating Taco Bell, and of course my mom! Except when she yells at me for using up all the toilet paper without telling her. No kids, 37, nice guys finish last ladies but I’ve been researching negging and getting redpilled.

Must be okay with fedoras and musky odors.

wizzwizz4 2021-08-17 13:43:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You can say this for trends, but not for individual cases. Roughly half the human population are women.

yhoneycomb 2021-08-17 13:16:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"I want someone who will fill my exact needs even though I bring nothing to the table"

This is satire, right?

Grakel 2021-08-17 13:38:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's what Tinder has become, predominantly. Young attractive women get more than enough attention from social media, they're not even on dating apps as they were a decade ago. I try it once in a while just to see. But the audience is abysmal. Actually easier to go out and meet someone. Which is wonderful, but there was a bright, shining time when you could just chat and meet up on Tinder or OK Cupid.

tsimionescu 2021-08-17 13:57:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Young attractive women get more than enough attention from social media, they're not even on dating apps as they were a decade ago.

I think this is a very strange take. Attractive people of any sex or gender get attention in many places. However, attention ismt dating - dating mostly happens in places people go to for dating. That may be bars, college parties, it may be Tinder/Grindr/OKCupid, it may be Instagram/Facebook/TikTok/Snapchat. Sure, some people serendipitously meet their SO in other circumstances, through common friends etc. But by and large, if you want a date, you simply need to be in the one of the places where your peer group dates, online or off. If the new dating app is Instagram, so be it.

rafale 2021-08-17 14:31:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Attractive women get a lot more attention than attractive men. I think that's common knowledge and is the manifestation of our biology: Men's drive to "chase" women is higher. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Also, from a reproductive standpoint, women are more valuable. Men's sperm is plentiful. Women's egg and 9 months commitment is the bottleneck. So of course some interesting power dynamics come with that.

tsimionescu 2021-08-17 18:07:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Perhaps, but it's irrelevant here. The fact is people who are looking for dates congregate in different places at different times. If Tinder is no longer the place to be, something else has taken its place.

ramesh31 2021-08-17 14:29:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>Which is wonderful, but there was a bright, shining time when you could just chat and meet up on Tinder or OK Cupid.

Yep. 2013 era Tinder was a completely different world than today.

carnitine 2021-08-17 13:22:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes, obviously.

yhoneycomb 2021-08-17 13:34:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Just checking lol

axelroze 2021-08-17 13:59:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nope. This is the reality of contemporary people. Just take take take and never give. Morality is dead. We killed it. Remains dead.

bilherrick 2021-08-17 14:13:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

They should probably start introducing this to every country, especially those with very high cat fishing incidents. In that way, Tinder will slowly gain the trust of the users in the said country.

twirlock 2021-08-17 19:29:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What about when the catfish is their system giving out fake likes to sell subscriptions?

Imaiomus 2021-08-17 13:56:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

thats great for the few not random permabanned

durnygbur 2021-08-17 14:50:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Bad luck mate, male profiles there have negative worth.

grumblenum 2021-08-17 14:41:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Fun prank if you have some young male friends:

1. Create profile with hot babe pictures

2. Set search proximity to lowest setting

3. Swipe furiously until you find your friend

4. Wait for a match

5. Screencap the ensuing conversation

I did this to a couple guys in my platoon. The results were definitely worth the effort.

robot_no_419 2021-08-17 17:16:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

People like you are better called "forced acquaintance" than "friend". Like, I'll be on good terms with you if I'm forced to be in your social circle, but you'd be out of my life the moment I don't have a compelling reason to interact with you every day.

me_me_me 2021-08-17 15:07:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Here is a better one, how about call a random people and tell them that their kid had terrible accident and they need to come to school imidetly. Its hilarious. /s

Hope there is a special place in hell for people who have cheap laughs at cost of emotional damage of others.

grumblenum 2021-08-18 12:43:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>Emotional damage

Just for clarity, I'm talking about adult males whose job description is essentially "jump out of planes and kill people." We're not made of quite such fragile stuff as, apparently, you are. It sounds like your life must be very difficult.

The level of well-I-never and pearl-clutching in these comments really speaks volumes about the HN commentariat.

me_me_me 2021-08-18 13:30:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Claming that soldiers or not affected by emotions is laughable and speaks volumes about your understanding of human psyche.

Why don't you go to PTSD meeting for veterans and just tell them to stop being jumpy because they are not suppose to be fragile and its all in their heads.

filoleg 2021-08-17 15:41:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I agree with your overall point that what the parent comment is suggesting might be not a nice way to treat your friends.

However, if someone feels an equivalent amount of distress from having a convo with a fake person on a dating app as they would from thinking that some terrible accident happened to their kid at school, I believe they might have some larger personal problems to address first.

neolog 2021-08-17 17:35:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's easy to forget how rare it is for some people to get any romantic validation in their lives. You finally meet someone who appreciates you, and then it turns out to be some asshole messing with you and mocking you publicly -- that's deeply horrible.

lolsal 2021-08-17 15:31:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's cool to be kind. It's not cool what you did.

throwaway0a5e 2021-08-17 17:26:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You should have fed the messages to a real woman you matched with and then used the good and bad results as teachable moments.

It would be like making the class walk through a math problems people did right and wrong.

It could have been a great team building exercise.

Cipater 2021-08-17 18:44:05 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What were the results?

grumblenum 2021-08-18 12:52:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Getting a request for a provocative picture of eating a corndog was definitely the most funny to me. The Chris Hanson moment was usually when the victim suggested a real date or offered to send a pic of his willy. I'm not THAT committed to humor.