No matter what you use, it seems they always fail and no one is interested.
Even a free app like duolicious has this problem.
Duolicious? That owl has been busy, I see.
Profit is gained by engagement.
Engagement is the opposite of solving the problem.
So an intermediate platform is not a working solution for dating.
Best interests of people looking for other people and the intermediary are in direct contradiction.
Sorta related, if you’re really interested in using them and are a straight cis person I highly recommend trying them out from the other side. Create a more or less generic account of the opposite gender and see what kinds of messages, likes, or whatever you end up with. It will be mind boggling how different it is from what you are used to and give you an idea of what you will need to do to actually make a match.
Dating apps are SUPER saturated now. Didn’t used to be like that way back in the beginning. OKCupid was cool because it was free and had no limitations. Bumble is one of the better ones these days, as far as I’m concerned.
I met my wife on OKC like… 10 years ago. I’m glad I exited that hellscape before it imploded.
I think apps and websites where you can see everyone without limits or algorithms are fine. Apps like those still exist. They are just like social networks with no gamification.
So I don’t think it’s the apps, friends. If it hurts no matter where you touch, maybe it’s your finger that’s broken…
I generally hate thinking like this, but ultimately, as with everything, there comes a point where it’s actually beneficial and probably the only healing move left, to admit that the problem might be in one’s self, not others (or the tools used, as in this case).
But that does not mean that the metaphorical finger is inherently fragile or unavoidably always broken. Just realizing this, as much as our psyche fights against it both to avoid admitting fault or conceding that there’s a lot of work to do, can start the processes to get the finger working and healthy.
I also don’t like how often this line of thought is turned around and used as a weapon, when it can actually be very hopeful and healing after the initial struggles trying to accept it (and failing to do so, defensively fighting against it with all your cells for a good while).
Well put. And let’s not forget that society is in many ways against us and expectations are high. Are you fit? Do you have good hair and teeth? Do you already have children? Are you in finance? Etc etc. And this is true in apps and irl. So the only thing you have control of, is accepting yourself, loving yourself, and growing for sake of yourself. With some luck, you grow into someone that someone else also loves.
I almost rejected someone that was truly into who I was as a person. I almost shrugged it off as them just being horny all the time. It’s almost scary to find someone that actually likes us and all our weird quirks.
I married someone I met on one of those sites. But that was years ago.
Now that one company owns most of them, they’re a lot less effective, as eHarmony basically gutted the interesting features of their competitors and let them/encouraged them to become bot infested OF pitch platforms.
I think apps and websites where you can see everyone without limits or algorithms are fine. Apps like those still exist. They are just like social networks with no gamification.
So I don’t think it’s the apps, friends. If it hurts no matter where you touch, maybe it’s your finger that’s broken…
I think there was a time fairly early on when at least one was built to do the job it was advertised to.
I think more than half of Lemmy’s members were born after that though.
I remember being shocked in the early 90’s listening to plans for a dating site. The focus was on collecting and selling demographics. Even the private info being collected was driven by what sold to advertisers more than what helped people relate to each other
Yes, dating apps have always been a fraud because making a social connection was always secondary to selling you
I haven’t touched them in 5 years, but Hinge was the best of all of them. The thing is designed to make it as easy as possible to set up a profile packed to the brim with conversation-starting prompts, and then it’s stupid easy to start a conversation with someone else because you can respond to a specific prompt on someone else’s profile.
In my experience, it works really well if you set someone up to ask a question
In my experience, Hinge is still the best, but all of the apps have the same fundamental flaw. Imagine every person in your area who is single is one big room and you line up to meet each other one at a time. That’s basically how they work. Want to skip meeting people with different political or religious beliefs? No problem! Just pay up (and by the way, it’s not cheap). Also, the filters are critically limited and largely superficial. It’s a slog no matter what.
From what I’ve heard, OkCupid used to work properly as a way to find people who were actually a good match for you, but Match group bought them and stripped all the tools that made it useful. I actually recently saw a great comment about exactly that.
My partner and I found each other on OkC over 4 years ago. I had been on dating apps for maybe 5-6 years prior, whereas I was basically her first match
No, they work
I always wonder about people who claim they don’t work. People say they’re rigged, meh, maybe so, but how rigged can they be?! You get pictures and words, decide if you want to engage. That’s the meat of it, and they’re not fucking with that.
Years ago I logged into Plenty of Fish with a fake woman’s account, looked at the men’s profiles. Jesus fucking Christ. What a bunch of pathetic sad sacks, boring as hell to boot. Don’t start me on the pics.
Went back and rewrote my profile to be funny and interesting, likes came pouring in. I’ve had many, many women over the years message me to say, “Hey! Not looking for a date, but wanted to say your profile is awesome!” Both a bummer and nice to hear. :)
I mean I don’t date, but I’ve never once heard of a person who met on a dating app and actually got together with them, I have heard of instant message platforms working though.
My current and most of my more recent relationships started from tinder, which has been more or less the “default” at least here in my age group (20-30). A few were from Jodel or such in between, but I’ve had most luck with the swipey app. Both poly and mono, depending on the phase I was going through at the time.
I think at least most of my friends have met their partners (most being long term by now, with children and such, like mine too currently) that way. But I live in a relatively small country, so maybe that affects the spread in the apps. When you are just a few million people in total speaking the language, there’s not much sense I suppose to spread thin between several apps.
I met my last long term partner on a dating app, but these days it’s not a route I’d want to take. I met someone on discord more recently in a really wonderful community that allowed me to get to know him and make other friends with none of the same pressure
They work sporadically, but you have to fit a few fairly specific archetypes to get a significant amount of matches. There’s more options that you can shoot for beyond hyper-attractive guy but not a lot more.
If you’re a generic man looking to find a generic woman to have a generic relationship with, then the odds are stacked against you for most of them.
They were “decent” 14 ish years ago. And they worked a fair amount. I know married friends who met on them.
That said the Internet in general has fallen off a cliff with enshitification…
I know people today that still use them and do ok.
“Free” anything is going to be complete shit.
Like anything else in life it takes work, during 8 months I was doing it I spent 10-15 hours on it. And that wasn’t “scrolling” profiles. I was constantly tweaking my profile, looking for was to improve it. Also when I did “match” someone I worked on my greetings, interesting things to say, etc.
I would even keep snippets of texts. (The one I was on had a question/answer part.
Dating is a lot of work for many people.
