Abundance in online dating makes it harder to become curious about a person, tolerate uncertainty, or feel satisfied with our choice, writes Meehika Barua.
They were a silly concept to begin with. If they worked well, they’d kill their own business model. To stay economically viable they therefore have to use all kinds of tricks and produce mixed-at-best results, and cognitive manipulation to keep their user base entertained. Glad to see them finally collapse
I think, it’s a myth that matchmaking has to be bad to survive. We see that in gaming all the time. The problem is just that physical world matchmaking is optimized to get recurrent customers instead of finding good matches. And that inevitably tanks the reputation. The first dating platform with good matchmaking will be the last one standing because it will suck the competition dry.
There is a market for good matchmaking. It’s just not as big as the imagined market for bad matchmaking (which we see now isn’t actually that big once people realize that the service sucks).
Also there are still “for real” matchmaking services — for marriage — in plenty of cultures. This is a pretty normal way for folks to get married in many countries. If these apps had gone for being “the digital version of that” instead of algorithmic enshittification, maybe it would be a different story
I never really believed that montra of if they were successful they lose a customer. I met my wife on a dating site over 13 years ago and told everyone I knew about it and how good it was. Many of the people that I told tried the site. It’s a great way to spread your business if anything then through natural word of.mouth you actually kinda weed out people who are looking for the wrong things. Unfortunately the one I used ok cupid was bought by the big conglomerate and they change it so it was just like all the others. The other place I see it working is if governments offered the service because they want people to be matched up. I get people might not trust the government to match them up but why would you trust a company to do it then.
They were a silly concept to begin with. If they worked well, they’d kill their own business model. To stay economically viable they therefore have to use all kinds of tricks and produce mixed-at-best results, and cognitive manipulation to keep their user base entertained. Glad to see them finally collapse
I think, it’s a myth that matchmaking has to be bad to survive. We see that in gaming all the time. The problem is just that physical world matchmaking is optimized to get recurrent customers instead of finding good matches. And that inevitably tanks the reputation. The first dating platform with good matchmaking will be the last one standing because it will suck the competition dry.
There is a market for good matchmaking. It’s just not as big as the imagined market for bad matchmaking (which we see now isn’t actually that big once people realize that the service sucks).
Also there are still “for real” matchmaking services — for marriage — in plenty of cultures. This is a pretty normal way for folks to get married in many countries. If these apps had gone for being “the digital version of that” instead of algorithmic enshittification, maybe it would be a different story
I never really believed that montra of if they were successful they lose a customer. I met my wife on a dating site over 13 years ago and told everyone I knew about it and how good it was. Many of the people that I told tried the site. It’s a great way to spread your business if anything then through natural word of.mouth you actually kinda weed out people who are looking for the wrong things. Unfortunately the one I used ok cupid was bought by the big conglomerate and they change it so it was just like all the others. The other place I see it working is if governments offered the service because they want people to be matched up. I get people might not trust the government to match them up but why would you trust a company to do it then.