Online dating industry in crisis as shares fall and nearly half of all users report negative experiences on the apps

  • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    Good, maybe politely* asking people out in public spaces other than “the fucking bar” will become acceptable again rather than creepy.

    *To clarify, I mean stuff like “I think you look cool, wanna grab some coffee?” not like “Ay lemme taste the inside of your butthole gurl.”

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      No, it won’t, because it has never not been creepy. People should be allowed to go into public without constantly being approached. The part you don’t get is that being asked out for coffee once is novel, twice is fun, but after that it gets old really fucking quick. I do not want to have to deal with that every time I just want to do some fucking laundry.

      And 90% of the people who do/did this are legitimately creeps.

    • chrischryse@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I agree, I’ll be honest that’s why I use these apps. Because when I’d try to just talk to a girl in person and be friendly I get the sense they think I’m either being creepy or want to get in their pants. When I’m just an introvert just trying to start up a conversation lol

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      4 months ago

      Maybe women like not having men randomly coming up to them trying to express interest and pursue a date, and not having to deal with the fear of what they may do if rejected?

      IDK I’m not a woman.

      • Coco@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Women like not being approached by men they don’t find attractive, but women also like being appreciated and approached by men they find attractive. And you can never know in which group you fall. And if you just always do what other people desire, you will never get anywhere in life.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        I don’t think women really feel any differently about it than men do.

    • Coco@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      You can still do that, but as rsuri says, you cannot be so direct. It’s too confrontational and girls don’t really appreciate that. You have to invent some plausibly deniable reason to start a conversation. This also gives the girl an out if she is not really interested. Then you just allude to your interest in her, which don’t worry she will pick up on immediately. At some point you will either hear, “… and my bf and I” or you hear nothing of that genre. At the end you can ask for a number. That’s not exactly the end of the story. Most of the time, the conversation continues through text only for her to drop you before a date is planned. But it’s in any case a way better experience than Tinder, unless you’re some hunk who can write “6’4” on Tinder and get 100+ matches.

    • rsuri@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’m old enough to remember life before the apps. I could never figure out how to make that work. Approaching girls was stressful and hard and there was a lot of ambiguity because you’d need like some ulterior motive for talking to them and then would have to shift to dating which I never had the confidence to do. Like I’d offer to send her some class notes or something and I’d get her email. But then what?

      Just walking up to a random girl and saying:

      I think you look cool, wanna grab some coffee?

      Would have an extremely low success rate I’m sure. Girls need to feel comfortable first, after all strangers who approach you in a public place tend to be people you’d rather not talk to. Now if you’re at a bar and a friend introduces you and you have a conversation first, well that could work and it’s kinda how my parents and older cousins met in the pre-app days. But if you’re me in college and you’re an engineering nerd and have only a handful of equally nerdy friends, those conversations are hard to come by. And that’s the role the apps filled for me - the introduction.

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        Lmao it seems 5 people agree with you. Sorry butthole tasters, I didn’t mean to say I don’t count myself amongst your ranks, as I most assuredly do. I only mean to say that leading with it is probably not the least creepy move one could pull in a grocery store.

        • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          probably not the least creepy move one could pull in a grocery store

          So you’re saying it’s definitely not the worst, right?

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    Bumble is stupid. The core design of the app forces you to check it every 24 hours or less or you’ll lost people you matched with.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      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?

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        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.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          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.

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            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.

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              4 months ago

              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.

    • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      I mean… maybe in this case? I feel like profile/picture based matchmaking is something an ML model could be pretty good at in theory. Match people based on physical preferences and attractiveness (get head scans and frontal & profile full body shots), basic demographic/location/financial info, fill out a questionnaire with hobbies, political views, sexual preferences, etc.

      Do that for groups of satisfied pre-existing couples first to train the model on, then continue training the model on the successful matches from the app. Have it spit out X number of matches that have the highest ratings for all users, limit it to X matches per time period to limit “swiping” behaviors, then let users talk/date and provide feedback to the app about what they did/didn’t like.

      Obviously, it would need major privacy protections given how sensitive the info is, but that’d be a way better system than Tinder and the like. Like a super powered robo matchmaker serving up the highest probability matches.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        we should make an entirely AI based dating platform, that does everything for the individual. Such that the only way you truly meet is in person. Surely there would be no problems with this.

        • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Nah. Obviously, you’d talk beforehand, and no one would be forced to use it. It’s no different than arranged dates through a matchmaker. Now, there’d be valid privacy and ethics concerns - especially if your ML model is racist. But that’s a whole different thing. People are often quite bad at picking good matches for themselves, and computers are great at pattern ID and so potentially good at finding matches.

  • Wahots@pawb.social
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    4 months ago

    Meeting people via clubs, activities, and friendships is the key to success these days.

  • pastabatman@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I don’t mind the concept of dating apps, but nearly all of the useful features are paywalled. I also wouldn’t mind paying a few bucks for a service I find useful, but the prices are outrageous.

      • m4xie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        I’ve only used is a couple of times and now I can’t remember my log in. What features are there that you can pay for? Are they actually good/necessary?

      • pastabatman@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Right? There’s no way it costs more money to run Tinder than Netflix, and Netflix is profitable at like $15 per month.

    • Jarix@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I would like to make my own dating app cause i apparently dont know how to date, but these apps are obviously incentivised to keep you on the app, constantly spending money to have the hope someone you like actually messages you back.

      But the amount of apps that spam you going, "this person just signed up, message them right away!”

      Tells you all you need to know about how they companies work.

      But all that being said, i would rather buy the match group, and just fix all the existing apps they have

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’ve never used one of those apps, but the risk of being defrauded or, worse, assaulted, would be way too high for me to take that sort of chance.

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      I can’t imagine how unpleasant I would feel if I was defrauded or harmed because of using a dating website. I’m going to call that ‘appalling’, although that’s too weak a word.

      I’m so happy that I met my wife through circumstance and chance and we just love each other and that’s it.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I got married before smartphones were a thing. I’m just lucky my wife loves me even though I’m an idiot.

    • ji17br@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      It’s really not that hard, don’t give out personal info. Meet in a public place.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Long cons are a thing. I think I would just try to date people I already knew or just stay single. But I’m not the most trusting soul after getting burned a couple of times when I owned a business.

        • ji17br@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Yeah but that’s not an issue with dating apps. That’s just an issue with humans.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            True, but dating apps put you in touch with strangers as possible dates rather than people you already know. I admit this is way out of my ballpark and I’m just speculating about myself. I don’t think I’d do anything like speed dating if that’s still a thing either.

            • ji17br@lemmy.ml
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              4 months ago

              There’s no one I know that could be a potential partner. I’m assuming many people are in a similar boat. We have to date strangers anyways, app or no app.

              • WelcomeBear@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                That sucks.
                I don’t know if this is a thing anymore but “back in my day” your friends/family/coworkers/roommates would try to hook you up with other people that they know are single and might be a good match. Especially the older ladies in your life, that was like their mission in life. Aside from that, you might ask someone who runs in overlapping circles that you’ve seen a few times if they want to get coffee or lunch.

                The closest thing to Tinder-type dating would have been “cruising” on a Friday and Saturday night, driving up and down the Main Street of your town, hanging out in parking lots to talk and make plans for the night. Even then, you would ask “where do/did you go to school” and “do you know ____” “are you related to” type questions to establish your “degrees of Kevin Bacon” relationship in the social network.

                So there was no need to date total strangers. That would be considered kinda weird and suspicious, which is why online dating was heavily stigmatized in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. I went on a few match.com and eharmony dates but kept it secret, telling only my closest friends, out of shame. They thought I was crazy, meeting up with strangers like that.

                A few horny guys would try to chat up every random stranger and it occasionally paid off for them, but that wasn’t really normal behavior.

                I think we’re all more mobile now, moving from city to city for work, so those networks are probably shattered for most people.

                I feel so incredibly lucky that I dodged the dating app bullet, it seems awful for guys to try and compete in that space. And for women, having creepy dudes be creepy with no repercussions, with no way to tell their mother/aunt/sister to smack some sense into them… not great.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                Like I said, I’d probably just remain single in that case. I just am not trusting enough of total strangers. If a friend set me up with someone, I’d do that. But I would be too suspicious to date a total stranger.

                Just me personally.

                • ji17br@lemmy.ml
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                  4 months ago

                  Different strokes for different folks. Been on many dates with strangers, it’s almost always enjoyable. Turns out 99% of people are just normal people. The 1% of crazy people are the stories you hear that make people not want to go outside. Id just rather not live my life in fear.

  • hate2bme@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I always have great conversations with girls on apps. Then when we set up a date I get ghosted the day of. The one time the date actually would have happened the girl was a LOT larger than her pics. And I have no problem with dating a bigger girl but I do have a problem with liars. Never again.

    • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      You have to build in a nearly 10:1 cost. For every ten tentative contacts, only one is going to pan out. That’s just the cost of playing. If you don’t like it, there are better ways to meet people.

      Put “NO FAT CHICKS” in your profile, I’m sure she was more disappointed to get you and would have appreciated the heads up. In fact, wear a shirt that says that and save everyone from wasting their time.

      • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
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        4 months ago

        I would prefer if we treated others with respect and honesty. She lied, so there is nothing to be done

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        In fact, wear a shirt that says that and save everyone from wasting their time.

        The chick could have just…not lied and saved everyone from wasting their time as well.

    • PrimeMinisterKeyes@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Are you sure about being ghosted? Or is the app just cutting your connection?
      Same thing you described happened to me so many times I’ve lost count. Furthermore, I’ve compared profiles with some women I did met IRL and wouldn’t you know, what you see in your “profile preview” or whatever is not necessarily how anybody else gets to see you. We’ve seen profile pictures being removed or entire profile texts being wiped out, sometimes just before the first date.
      Some people became aware of the enshittifaction/ gamification many years ago and resorted to putting their IG handles or phone numbers into their profiles “in case we get interrupted.” When some dating sites starting cracking down on that, too, they started putting this info into their pictures instead.
      And that’s not even mentioning the bots and “controllers,” as they used to be called, whose only purpose is to extract private information from you. At least in the EU, dating apps have had to disclose their existence in the TOS for some years. They all do.
      TLDR; The game is rigged beyond belief.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        I’ve never seen any app mess with my matches. I’ve been unmatched plenty of times, but for every one I can think of, it was for a reason. One was clearly just using it for attention, one clearly had no interest during the date, one apparently took personal offense to my opinion that I didn’t like boba tea (and this after she asked what I thought was overrated!)

        I currently have one match just sitting there weeks after going on two dates, and I guess neither of us felt strongly enough about it either to talk about a third date, or to confirm the end of it. So it doesn’t seem to cut anything off for me.

    • rehydrate5503@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Similar situation here. Lots of ghosting, or unmatching the day of a scheduled date. Had two dates in the last few months of using the apps. First woman was about 15 years older than her pics. Not unattractive by any means, but felt lied to from the get go. The other, let’s just say she had some work done after most recent pics, and the surgeon shouldn’t be practicing.

      • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        My wife and I met through eHarmony about 15 years ago now, and have been happily married over 10 now. Prior to meeting her I’d tried a handful of other dating apps but never had any luck. I had very similar stories about ghosting, unmatching, etc.

        I have no idea if eHarmony still works the way it used to, but back when I met my wife it was fairly different from the likes of Match.com, Tinder, etc. When setting up your profile you had to answer a bunch of fairly specific questions that covered everything from if you were looking for casual dates, long term, marriage, if you have/want kid, etc. to things like activities you enjoy to how important things like family, religion, career, etc. are to you.

        When they show you a potential match you get to see how they answered those questions along with a more open profile. If both of you indicate interest in communicating with each other then you’re first led through some rounds of guided communication to begin with. As I recall you would both pick 3 or 4 multiple choice questions from a list of 30 or so to ask the other person, and they would do the same. After you both answered those questions then you would do the same with more open-ended questions and so on. Only after a few rounds of that would you be able to chat/email with the other person.

        What I realized while using eHarmony is that it kind of forced you to invest time & some conscious effort to communicate with potential matches. That resulted in more of them being open to proceed further. I went on dates with a few women I met on eHarmony before I met my wife.

        As I said before I have no idea if eHarmony still operates this way or not. That’s how they did things 15 years ago and it could have changed a lot since then.

  • AssaultPepper@monero.town
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    4 months ago

    Met my fiance on a dating app, but I think they really peaked in the pandemic for the reasons the article stated that nobody had anywhere else to go.

    Now it’s likely just filters for people who spend the time cultivating a social presence elsewhere.

  • abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    As a guy, these apps suck. I’ve met a few people on them, but it’s very obvious that they are deliberately hiding matches and people that are your type behind a paywall. It’s not in their best interest to show you people that have the same interests as you, it’s better if they bundle them all up and slap a big fat price tag on the front.

    People are starting to realize these apps aren’t about hooking up or making connections, they’re about squeezing desperate people looking for love into giving money for the promise of finding it.

    • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      People don’t even use these apps to actually meet people. There are much better ways to actually meet people and we all know it. They all involve getting out and interacting with human beings in meatspace. We use these apps for parasocial stimulation. We look at the faces scroll by, gaze into their eyes, and it tricks our stupid brains into thinking we are having social interactions. That’s the actual product they are selling.

      • abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I don’t think these are for parasocial interaction at all. Maybe for social media as a whole yes. But dating apps are pretty much intentionally trying to meet people. Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok sure, those are just interaction simulators. But those aren’t what we are talking about here.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        You’re getting downvoted, but you’re right. They sell hope.

        Some people do use apps successfully, but from the Sankey charts I saw on reddit, the vast majority of interactions go nowhere. On the other hand, most interactions I’ve had IRL usually lead to at least a few dates.

      • Tanis Nikana@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I know anecdote doesn’t mean data, but I met my wife on OKCupid. We’re both asexual trans women, and the notion of finding someone so compatible like that would have been terrible had we done it in real life, locally only. She was in Boston, I was in Portland. And asexual trans women are a minority of a minority, so it would have taken forever in real life.

        Then again, OK Cupid has since enshittified.

      • iopq@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Wrong, I went on them to get laid. I would not use a method that didn’t work

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Hmmm.

    Sounds good to me I haven’t met anyone so I can happily quit them now methinks, especially if they will financially suffer at this point