‘Bumble fumble’: online dating apps struggle as people swear off swiping
Online dating industry in crisis as shares fall and nearly half of all users report negative experiences on the apps
Online dating industry in crisis as shares fall and nearly half of all users report negative experiences on the apps
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There are ways to fix the issue, but it wouldn't be 'profitable'. It probably could not be run as a for-profit company. It would also necessarily be deeply intrusive; there's no way to beat some of the problems that make dating apps such a pain in the ass without also giving up a lot of privacy to the company running the app.
You've got a couple of issues going on. First, women--and some men--end up getting harassed on these platforms. Related to that, you have people using them that simply aren't safe, such as people convicted of violent crimes and sexual assaults. Second, you have a number of people using them to cheat on existing partners. Third, catfishing and scams. Fourth, the profit motive of the company means that they aren't really interested in seeing you finding a partner at all.
For starters, you'd need to have a system that required your real name, and would require verification on the order of opening a bank account built into it. (Yes, that means that you'd need really strong security.) They would need to run background checks, and look for things like criminal history, and searching tax records to make sure that you weren't filing taxes jointly. It would also forcibly populate fields about e.g. how many children you have. You'd likely need to set it up with geolocation (both GPS and WiFi); trying to use a VPN or any other privacy-centric processes running would prevent the app from functioning.
Rather than subscriptions, you pay a single fee up-front, and activate/de-activate your account as desired.
For harassment/catfishing/scams/paid sex work, etc., you could create a reporting system that would result in permanent bans for anyone found to be engaging in those behaviors. You'd likely need to also have systems in place and warnings against moving conversations to other platforms (e-mail, texting, etc.), so that harassing and scammy messages could get reported easily. Catfishing would be much more difficult if accounts were linked to your real identity.
This is just kind of brainstorming. As I said, there are ways around all of the issues that people have with apps, if they're serious about meeting people. You can't fix hook-up culture per se; someone can lie to you just as easily IRL as they can on an app. But you can at least remove the worst trash from apps.
you have people using them that simply aren’t safe
i feel like it would be better to describe them as potentially dangerous or violate, rather than "not safe" as that's a little weird IMO. Maybe you're talking about how people convicted of violent sexual crimes get violently criminalized on dating apps though lol.
Second, you have a number of people using them to cheat on existing partners.
i feel like this isn't really a problem, seems like it would be at least somewhat expected to me lmao. I'm also not really sure why it would matter, other than the dating base is probably shitty, but i hear it doesn't exist anyway so.
(Yes, that means that you’d need really strong security.)
actually it doesn't it just means you need to pretend that you have strong security, until your database gets hacked and leaked, and then you actually improve the security before the government bonks you on the head. (this one was just a shitpost)
You’d likely need to also have systems in place and warnings against moving conversations to other platforms (e-mail, texting, etc.), so that harassing and scammy messages could get reported easily.
a good solution for this one is to make the on platform chat not fucking awful. I can't imagine any of these dating apps have good chat platforms built in. That or maybe partner with something more universal?
i feel like it would be better to describe them as potentially dangerous or violate, rather than “not safe” as that’s a little weird IMO.
Either/or. The language isn't important, but I think that excluding people with convictions and/or arrests for violent crimes and domestic violence--or at the very least putting red flag warnings in their profile that they can't remove--would be helpful. There was a website that purported to do similar, but it was based on first-hand accounts rather than public records, and ended up getting sued into oblivion. But if you're using public records, then as long as it's factual, there's no reasonable claim of defamation.
i feel like this isn’t really a problem, seems like it would be at least somewhat expected to me lmao.
If you're actually looking for a serious relationship--and not the hookup culture that people are supposedly fleeing--then knowing that a potential partner isn't legally married is pretty much the low end of the bar. It's not a guarantee, but it's something you can use that's a matter of public record that can exclude people.
actually it doesn’t it just means you need to pretend that you have strong security, until your database gets hacked and leaked,
Well, if you don't have very strong and effective security, then you need very deep pockets to pay out the damages when it does get hacked.
That or maybe partner with something more universal?
That's a pretty good idea.
I think that, for me, an ideal system would be one that was end-to-end encrypted unless one of the two participants forwarded the message chain to a safety team at the company, and only then would it be visible to the safety team. So no one could just peek at your chats, but as soon as you sent a message to a safety team about harassment, the entire chat up to that point would be visible.
You'd need to have very clear guidelines set up so that it was clear what constituted a "no", so that there wasn't a lot of room for interpretation; there are plenty of people (all genders) that will take anything up to a hard 'no' as a 'try harder', and there are a bunch that will even take that 'no' as a 'try harder'.
As I said, I think that the problems with apps can all be solved, but I don't think that they can be solved if you're trying to monetize the whole thing. It only works if the goal is matching people up rather than making boatloads of cash.
Either/or. The language isn’t important, but I think that excluding people with convictions and/or arrests for violent crimes and domestic violence–or at the very least putting red flag warnings in their profile that they can’t remove–would be helpful. There was a website that purported to do similar, but it was based on first-hand accounts rather than public records, and ended up getting sued into oblivion. But if you’re using public records, then as long as it’s factual, there’s no reasonable claim of defamation.
idk i feel like that phrasing is rather ambiguous, but maybe that's supposed to cover both sides of people? Regardless, something like that pulling public records or making public records would be pretty much cleared from the get go. That would definitely work.
If you’re actually looking for a serious relationship–and not the hookup culture that people are supposedly fleeing–then knowing that a potential partner isn’t legally married is pretty much the low end of the bar. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s something you can use that’s a matter of public record that can exclude people.
yeah, maybe we need more broad relationships status capabilities in general. Regardless dating someone cheating on someone else is not a fun prospect, but i'm also not sure how likely you are to be aware of it either. Depends on the person probably.
Well, if you don’t have very strong and effective security, then you need very deep pockets to pay out the damages when it does get hacked.
and historically that seems to be exactly what happens, a similar thing happened to target recently.
That’s a pretty good idea.
I could see having a integration between things like whatsapp, or signal being a nice alternative, giving you a relatively flexible and vetted set of alternatives to the integrated platform.
I think that, for me, an ideal system would be one that was end-to-end encrypted unless one of the two participants forwarded the message chain to a safety team at the company, and only then would it be visible to the safety team. So no one could just peek at your chats, but as soon as you sent a message to a safety team about harassment, the entire chat up to that point would be visible.
yeah i could see this working, although i would prefer it to be E2E the entire time, with the ability to bring in a third party for review, which would likely close that conversation permanently and then make it clearly visible, otherwise it might be a little sus.
You’d need to have very clear guidelines set up so that it was clear what constituted a “no”, so that there wasn’t a lot of room for interpretation; there are plenty of people (all genders) that will take anything up to a hard ‘no’ as a ‘try harder’, and there are a bunch that will even take that ‘no’ as a ‘try harder’.
a pretty good functional alternative is just killing the message chain entirely. Platform account blocking maybe? There are certainly some options available.
As I said, I think that the problems with apps can all be solved, but I don’t think that they can be solved if you’re trying to monetize the whole thing. It only works if the goal is matching people up rather than making boatloads of cash.
yeah anything with VC money in it from the get go is going to be a heaping pile of shit once > 50% market share is achieved.
yeah, maybe we need more broad relationships status capabilities in general.
While I wish that were possible, I can't think of a great way to ensure that. Best I can think of is ensuring that they aren't married and/or lying about having children. (At one time you could have used Facebook statuses as a stand-in for that, but I don't think that's accurate anymore.)
a pretty good functional alternative is just killing the message chain entirely. Platform account blocking maybe?
What I'm thinking is that you will need a set of clear guidelines so that you can remove people from the platform entirely if they exhibit a pattern of misconduct. One, maybe two instances where someone violates guidelines, okay, blocking them from contact with that specific person is sufficient, as long as they know exactly what conduct was out of bounds and learn from it. But multiple instances of harassing behaviour means that someone needs to be pruned from the system. I'm on the fence as to whether it should be a permaban kind of thing, or whether it should be graduated time-outs (a week ban, a month ban, three month ban, a year ban, etc.), with red flag warnings for harassment in their profile. I could go either way right now.
Regardless, you'd need a general block feature, so that you could block people that you found distasteful, but weren't engaging in overtly harassing behaviour.
yeah anything with VC money in it from the get go is going to be a heaping pile of shit once > 50% market share is achieved.
I think you could shorten that to "anything with VC money in it is going to be a heaping pile of shit". As long as there's a profit motive, there's no way to avoid it. But I'm not sure how you could possibly make it work without VC-type money.
While I wish that were possible, I can’t think of a great way to ensure that. Best I can think of is ensuring that they aren’t married and/or lying about having children. (At one time you could have used Facebook statuses as a stand-in for that, but I don’t think that’s accurate anymore.)
yeah, thats why i kinda just don't care about it. There's not much you can do outside of being passively aware.
What I’m thinking is that you will need a set of clear guidelines so that you can remove people from the platform entirely if they exhibit a pattern of misconduct. One, maybe two instances where someone violates guidelines, okay, blocking them from contact with that specific person is sufficient, as long as they know exactly what conduct was out of bounds and learn from it. But multiple instances of harassing behaviour means that someone needs to be pruned from the system. I’m on the fence as to whether it should be a permaban kind of thing, or whether it should be graduated time-outs (a week ban, a month ban, three month ban, a year ban, etc.), with red flag warnings for harassment in their profile. I could go either way right now.
absolutely, but i consider that to be an external moderation thing, site TOS type of deal. Rather than an individual level communication problem. So i wasn't really thinking about that problem in that part.
I think you could shorten that to “anything with VC money in it is going to be a heaping pile of shit”. As long as there’s a profit motive, there’s no way to avoid it. But I’m not sure how you could possibly make it work without VC-type money.
ok so it's kinda weird, but generally VC funding either impregnates new startups with promising futures, or it funds into existing and productive applications, like discord for example. Or patreon. The entire point is to make a good application or piece of software that works while, and in the mean time, burning as much money as you can to make it "work" with the expectation that you enshittify it later, and then WRING the hell out of it for all that money you initially invested, as the majority of the userbase is now stuck into the platform, which is the exact business model of discord lol. Generally you can make it work well and properly from the get go, it's later that it gets worse.
As for a dating platform, like i said, i think moving away from the concept of a dating platform is a good idea, push to use local community groups, or meetup places instead. Decentralized and moderated by the people that actually use it. Providing a much more tailored experience.