What really happens inside a dating app

[delayed]

Funny thing is that when dating apps used to be "browse profiles, send message", nobody had to debate inner workings. Users could self select people of interest, send them a message directly, and know there'd be a very good chance that their profile/message would at least be seen.

Issue today is that apps control visibility, both in terms of profiles and likes. I've tried Hinge a few times. Did like a 4 month initial stint that had me consistently matching/meeting very attractive women (ones in the standouts section), tried it again a year later under a paid plan and had one mediocre match in 2 weeks (same photos and profile).

Skimmed the article so maybe this was addressed, but there's dark patterns happening on these apps, or faulty algos, or both.

If this doesn't all make perfect sense and square with your observations you're not jaded enough.

I already knew a lot of what was written here but for some reason reading this made me uninstall bumble.

Interesting data in the article though nothing unexpected for people who follow this space. Some notable points:

> The other thing that interests you is the like ratio, or the openness, among 100 profiles that the user sees, how many of them does he like? (The median for men is 26% and for women is 4%.)

>The like ratio of a girl is almost independent of the profiles she sees. For example, if a girl has a like ratio of 5% and you remove 50% of the profiles, even if you remove only the profiles she will not like, her like ratio will still be 5% (you can do that by removing very unattractive people for a guy that is very attractive, for example). It is funny to observe, but it seems like a girl has internal reasoning on a dating app, and they know they can only like x% of profiles whatever she sees (of course, it doesn't work if you show only ugly people).

And lastly:

>Whats interesting is that the more attractive the guys were ranked by girls the more they were looking for something not serious.

> You would need to be a pro at user interviews to really get interesting feedback. (Well maybe this is the norm in B2C but at the end of the day user interviews were of no help).

This shouldn’t be surprising. Interviewing humans is a skill. Doing so in a product context, and learning useful things from it, is not easy.

I hope they don’t approach other things this way. “You’d need to be a professional plumber to stop water leaking out of this. Maybe that’s the norm but at the end of the day plumbing was no help.”

> More than 50% of men just never receive a like, and never means maybe 2 or 3 likes in the lifespan of several weeks

Half the user base are patsies is basically the fundamental design.

My anecdotal user-end data-science-ish story about dating apps:

A few years back I was single and on Hinge a fair amount. If you used Hinge back then, you'll remember some key differences between the platform and other dating apps: 1) when you "like"'d someone, you'd have to comment on a specific part of their profile (a photo, a prompt answer, etc), 2) these likes showed up in their inbox, independent of whether they liked you or not (as in, you didn't have to like each other mutually; the other end decided whether to reply or ignore after delivery), and 3) there was limit per day, you could like/message 8 profiles per day, no more. On average, swiping through my 8 per day, I'd generally get 1-2 new replies, which turned roughly into 3-4 first dates per month.

One of the key elements is that the inbox was time-ordered: the most recent like you received was at the top. There was discussion on the Hinge subreddit about how girls would typically only click through the top few items in their inbox daily, and if you were lower down, you were doomed to drown under the mountain of new message they're getting on top. So I figured I'd solve for "what is the optimal time of day to be blasting out my likes to ensure I end up higher in the inbox?"

You can probably see where this is going: I requested a GDPR data export, which happened to have all my conversations, time-stamped. Crunching through in Python there was something in the data I didn't really expect.. a disproportionate number of first-replies (replies to my initial like/message, that is) were around the 2-3pm bucket. Not what I would've expected (don't these people work?) but fair enough, I started doing all my swiping in those hours instead of in the evening as I usually did.

And it worked. Good god did it work. I consistently started getting replies to 70-80% of my initial messages (from the ~10% before). I was drowning in conversations to the point where I wouldn't swipe at all for days for fear of yet another conversation to manage. Within a few months I ended up meeting my current girlfriend and haven't been back on since, but it was surprising how well something simple like time-of-day affected my reply rate.

Has anyone noticed that the histograms have some spikes and valleys that are probably artifacts?

My guess is that there's some rounding or floating point shannanigans going on.

Yes this is what I have to contribute to the conversation, I cannot speak to the dating dynamics as I am an unexpert on that subject

> To me, if you are a guy on a dating app and your pictures are not taken by a professional photographer then you are losing your time, and if you are paying you are also throwing your money.

Don't do this.

You need good pictures that convey attractiveness (looks, as well as personality). Using professional photos conveys neediness & a level of desperation hidden under a shell of an ego the shot tries to portray. So you end up relying on looks with a handicap. A good looking person doesnt need professional shots to show that.

Sure, if you currently have mirror selfies, professional shots are better. Otherwise - if you are not a model who has magazine-published shots you're including in your profile, then don't go use or pay for professional shots. Figure out how to take canned shots on your own or pay a photographer for canned real shots (nothing highly edited).

Equal parts fascinating and dystopian.

I'm even more convinced now that online dating has reached a local optima, but eventually someone is going to find a solution that is less shallow and predatory and blow it out of the water.

> Guys that the girls think she wants to see but she will never like

Brutal.