I think an interesting dating app would be the exact same thing as the tinder variants with one key difference:
When you make a profile you get two accounts. One that shows only pictures, and another that only shows interest/text. There should be no way to infer one from the other without a “true match” as described below.
You match with peoples picture version and text versions separately and only when both dual matches complete mutually are you truly matched.
This in effect forces people to make themselves interesting enough without the crux that is photography but also presentable enough so that the natural superficial curiosities can be satisfied.
Assuming no one makes it I’ll probably make it at some point. The way monetization would work is by allowing you to rank people across attributes for both the picture profile and text profile. Paying users can be given information on this.
In addition paying users can be given a “second chance” where if your text profile receives a match but your picture profile doesn’t, you can ping the person anonymously in the future with a new set of pictures and speak with them again, but only after some cooldown period, say a week.
Obviously I’m biased but I think what I described is the solution to the problem that is modern online dating.
Potentially it is a really great idea.
A big problem with dating apps (particularly for women) is that users see so many potential matches that they don’t take anything seriously, imagine they’ve got more choice than they really do, and that if they hold out long enough something better will come along.
I’ve been thinking of how to engineer selection processes in ways that calibrate people better such as show people a block of ten items and let them pick the top three as opposed to rating things on a 1..10 scale or a swipe right/swipe left process.
How about a dating app that explicitly uses Optimal Stopping, the solution to the Marriage Problem/Secretary Problem:
> the best way to proceed is to interview (or date) the first 36.8 percent of the candidates. Don't hire (or marry) any of them, but as soon as you meet a candidate who's better than the best of that first group — that's the one you choose!
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/05/15/312537965/h...
The question becomes how many more dates or relationships will you have in your life? 36.8% of what?
More importantly, will my soulmate also be on that app? Better chance to find them on Tinder.
This seems advantageous for straight male users, but how would you draw straight female users who benefit from having multiple options on other apps? Asking as a female user of other dating apps.
Here's my ideal dating app (from a 50yo single male divorcee in Silicon Valley): A simple app where each profile has basic info, and exactly one 5 second video, taken only with the app itself, where you introduce yourself. That's it.
First, it clears out the thousands of fake profiles using random pics found online. Voice recognition can easily flag any profiles that don't fit the pattern of "Hi, my name is... ".
Second, it fixes the problem of catfishing, where real people use fake photos, or usually the best photo of themselves ever taken when they were 21 years old, 20 years ago.
Finally, it's not long enough to embarrass yourself. If you've ever seen the video dating recordings from the 80s, you'll know what I'm talking about. Five seconds or so is just enough time to say hello and give a sense of who you are without being cringe.
The rest is just bog standard dating stuff. Ghosting is a real problem, but what are you going to do? I guess you could have some sort of point system...
I'm pretty sure most people want to see some other dating app succeed (besides those owned by Match Co), both men and women. Unfortunately, 5+ years and it hasn't happened yet.
"Dating apps throw way too many options at us. You're supposed to swipe on people, maintain dozens of conversations, continue going on dates until you're exclusive. The lack of commitment undermines true intimacy. Cuffed only lets you match with one person at a time - forcing you to think about whether this match is worth your time."
This conflates exclusivity, commitment and intimacy in a way that doesn't reflect my romantic and dating life, or the lives of a number of my friends. I can only imagine what other assumptions it makes.
It's okay that this isn't for me, there's honestly a lot of room for innovation in the dating app or socialization app space. I've yet to find an app I consider perfect, though there are definitely ones I'm using that are more niche, and better suited for me, than tinder/CMB/OkCupid.
Is there a dating app where I can defeat inferior suitors in single combat of some kind? I was seriously considering a dance-off app for that, where you have a profile and can issue challenges to groups of other users, who are informed of who they think your competitors are, and then pick winners. It wasn't really fair though because it was a game I would always win. But something like it would be cool.
There is no app here. It is just an Airtable form. Hacker News title is misleading.
Well, this gave me a chuckle. But I feel like it might foster a "waiting for prince(ss) charming" effect, where you swipe away anyone who you're not absolutely enamored with. There might be an argument that being able to swipe right on anyone (and maintaining multiple conversations with them) leads to "giving more people a chance." An app like this might have the opposite effect and make the entire experience more superficial altogether.
Coffee Meets Bagel originally tried this before they changed things.
It's bad for men who already get ~0 matches unless you're in the top few % of men. It's bad for women who get a lot out of the massive selection options (why limit themselves to one? no benefit to them). The issue with dating sites is men are a commodity and women have too many options and that commoditization of men causes problems. Artificially limiting to one doesn't fix this though because the other apps still exist, you can't enforce a true limit when one doesn't exist (and can't exist given how mate selection works in people anyway, women will always be mostly choosing among many options and men have to pursue).
It's a little better based on region, but if you're not in the top few % of men (particularly if you're in a skewed area like the bay area) dating websites are not in your best interest. We're more similar to gorillas than people think.
I don't think this is an issue that can be solved via dating sites. Men will always have to adapt to meet their particular strengths in order to succeed and for that vast majority of us this means eschewing dating apps. Basically learning the human male variant of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX40mBb8bkU
The naive appeal of dating apps for men is obvious, it's really hard to meet single women randomly and showing interest correctly is complicated. The barrier seems lower with apps (but mostly isn't), people deeply desire a mate, but I think the lower barrier of apps is mostly an illusion for the vast majority of men who will get very few matches, even then there's no real replacement for improving social skills through the difficulty of actual practice and attempts (which apps don't help much with given effort to match ratio, effort to actual date ratio is even worse). The actual effort required I'd argue is higher in the end and you end up feeling worse about yourself because your value among other dating site men really is close to zero (a commodity).
I think for women the apps can be useful because you can set a date every week (or even more frequently) and there's a lot of benefit to this in practicing, getting a sense of what you like (or even just feeling good about yourself/desirable with hundreds of matches). Sure many dates are bad, but just getting this kind of at-bat practice is useful. This doesn't contradict the previous paragraph because most of these dates are with the same top few % of men that do well with apps.
Obviously the above applies to heterosexual matching, other types are different.
Personally I'm so glad to be out of the game. To other men still in it, I'd at least say it does get easier as you get older. If you're 22 and miserable, it'll be way easier at 27+ (I suspect largely because young men have low status, women tend not to want to date younger, etc.)
Where does this lead? What's next? Something with n number of blackmailable pieces you have on the person vs m they have against you (nvm>1 means stick; nvm<1 means go)? Showing how many people would be interested in each of you if you were actually on the market?
This doesn't seem to help relationship-building (and strength training!), which seems to me to be the problem most of my friends (ok, and I) face.
I find it a bit problematic that the form for registration is transexclusive (as in man/women) are the only option in a mandatory choice.
The reference to "West Elm Caleb" forced me to look up what the hell it was. Not a good idea on a landing page.
Isn't that like coffee meets bagels?
Coffee Meets Bagel was similar back in the day. You got one match a week.
I don't think "forcing" is a great word to use to promote a dating app.
What's the point of dating someone you don't know?
I think this qualifies for "Show hn"
Coffee Meets Bagel did something similar to this when they first launched. You got one potential match a day, and you either liked or passed. I thought it worked well, but there were eventually some problems.
For example, it assumes that you have an even balance of participants in your marketplace. If you have more men than women, you either need to give some men no matches on some days (which decreases engagement), or you need to give women multiple potential matches on some days. There are other ways you can handle this, but they have problems too.
Another potentially bigger issue is monetization. It is hard to monetize one match a day. But you can give people the option to have multiple matches a day if they pay for them, which is what CMB does. But then you should probably give people who were liked by a paid member at least one more match a day, which causes your original premise to break down.
Hinge severely limits the number of people you can like in a given day (unless you pay), and I think this works pretty well.