Pretty funny seeing what is after all, a ‘romantic’ venture (dating apps) broken down in a completely utilitarian analysis. Also helps to have a brook-no-shit writing style.
Years ago, was asked to do dev work on a clone of a dating app. Ended up looking at all the things these kinds of apps did to get people to pay. Two features I remember were giving new users option to buy top profile placement for a limited time, so they showed up as a first choice for everyone for the next hour.
Another was sending paid ‘virtual’ gifts, which turned out were badly ripped off clipart of flowers and jewelry. This was when Tinder was first starting so none of the fancy retention methods described here or AI filters.
I passed on working on the app, but made sure my wife knew exactly why I had installed all those dating apps on my phone. It really was for research.
The problem is that they are optimizing for the wrong values. They are looking at retention, but the ideal dating app should have bad retention! You get a couple of matches, you chat, date, exchange real numbers and you’re inactive on the app!
Some insightful comments from the last time it was posted:
lol somebody wrote a whole analysis why
The author is very likely female and Chinese.
a simple click on the author’s profile shows he’s a French man
There’s a lot of insight here but I wonder if anyone will corroborate it. The author admits that the app they worked on wasn’t nearly as big as the likes of Tinder and Hinge so I wonder if the overall patterns are the same.
Interesting observations. The behavior on dating apps is prime stuff for sociological research. I wonder what even more data from really big apps could reveal.
The author doesn’t seem to question the current role of dating in society and takes it as a given, but that’s fine observing phenomena from within the system is not invalid.
