I do not think that it is online dating that is brutal, but these dating sites.

I have been through a couple of online dating and personality usually came first, so by the time appearance was revealed, we already could not care much. She was not my type, I was not her type, but that affected nothing.

The reason it did not work out is financial and logistics (different country, I have MS, I am heavily dependent on healthcare, and so forth), not because of any moral failing or what have you.

I'd probably pick only the top 5% too if I was inundated by matches, so I'm not surprised.

And so while we can't fix that, guys can certainly improve their chances of being in that 5%. The thing is, what a picture shows on an online dating profile really is a lot down to you, irrespective of your actual appearance.

But men have a horrible ability to select pictures that are either incredibly low effort and poor quality, or the type of pictures that men would find other men cool in, rather than what will attract women, before even considering how you compete on actual appearance. When I spent some time figuring out my profiles back in the day, my match rate went up by a large factor.

I doubt the 50% is evenly distributed either and men for sure disproportionately give attention to conventionally attractive women.

Dating is brutal.

Online dating seems like it perhaps speed-runs that a bit, but I don’t think it dramatically changes the essence.

> Online dating is brutal.

You should try AFK dating sometime, it's even worse! Out of all the women I've met, only 0.00000001218% been interested enough to date and marry me, and I didn't even touch any of the apps! Brutal.

It’s only brutal because heteronormativity and beauty standards have made certain promises to boys, that they’ve grown expecting to be kept as men - and our society is entirely unable / unwilling to deliver on that promise. “It’s okay, everything will work out,” we hear as boys, and then as men, have our faces rubbed in, “of course it’s not okay, it was never okay, you have to work it out yourself, nobody owes you anything!”

It’s whiplash for a lot of guys, and that’s if you’re even savvy enough to clock it.

I don’t think it needs to be any more of a brutal realization than say the existence of say Santa, and yet here we are.

We need to do better about teaching our kids.

This reminds me of a black comedy movie called The Lobster, People are essentially forced into confinement into a hotel until they find a romantic partner, otherwise they will be transformed into an animal of their choice.

If you couple up with someone you are evaluated in a compatibility period to which if you argue you get given a child, if you argue again, you get given a second child haha.

Congrats! Dating apps are now actively lobbying to make birth control illegal. /s

> To run a business you either need to show ads, have everyone pay, or have a freemium model where it can be used for free but some portion of users pay.

True, but there are still alternatives.

This would be niche, but a self-hosted solution could be made for the more technically minded to use and network. The dating-net. Where efficiency and getting off the app are the priority. no profit seeking, no ads, no perverse incentives.

When I was single and before apps like Tinder, I used dating sites. I met lots of women this way and would at least get some responses.

Now that it's a much bigger business, it makes it much more difficult to actually meet someone.

None of the women I met on these sites worked out long-term. I met my wife through a meetup group where we were friends for a few years first.

Yes, we know why. The problem is that the incentives this creates for dating apps are among the worst around. Many sites have business models where they paywall is locking away content or functionality that is desirable, but few other types of sites benefit nearly as much not by just locking away content or features, but by actively making the site functionality worse for everyone - including for the paid users, who may get e.g. priority access but are still wading through a sewer of zombie profiles and other effects of the user hostile monetisation.

As for ads being such a big problem, I'm not convinced - we've had several reasonably successful dating sites that did well with ads instead of or in addition to freemium.

The biggest challenge to that model flourishing is that Match Group tends to buy them and start locking away the features and pushing more towards the subscriptions. E.g. Plenty of Fish was mostly ad funded until Match Group bought them, OkCupid more mixed, but then Match Group bought them.

I'm not blaming the founders of those. If I started a site like that and Match Group offered to throw money at me, I'd probably sell too, knowing I'd gotten their attention and they'd probably do their best to clobber me if not.

You will get more limited growth if ad funded compared to what you can squeeze out of maximally frustrated men. And as a result you'll be a more attractive acquisition target for Match Group to snatch up at a bargain knowing they can drive up margins by enshittifying you, and you'll have lower margins to fight them with if you don't sell.

Amen to that. OKC back in the day was wonderful, for nerds like myself who loved answering questions and data in general.

The great thing was that it was self-selecting -- the less compatible types answered very few questions and stumbled over anything involving basic general knowledge, logic or ethics. The compatible ones added thoughtful or witty freeform comments to their answers. You could essentially clear all the usual first-few-dates compatibility dances just by running through people's answers.

I met many wonderful people via that site, and I never went on a bad date with OKC; we always had heaps to talk about. I thankfully found my perfect match for all time via OKC nine years ago, just before match.com ripped up the matching algorithm and the questions and destroyed the site entirely.

It is not a good business model to match people well, and match.com clearly knows that.

> [edit] mixed up Plenty of Fish with OKCupid

That's okay - keeping track of all the sites Match Group have bought and trashed is difficult.

>[edit] mixed up Plenty of Fish with OKCupid

Na,this should be true for both brands these days?

Dating Apps don’t need to be corporate. You could make an app for a whole country with a company of less than 10 people.

Amazon (and Tesla) famously had very patient shareholders, and they are both private companies.

Which would fit with PAP values, historically.

I think it's unlikely for your worst case scenario to be realized. Underspecified objectives can cause unexpected results, but it can also lead to desired results. Fortunately experimentation is relatively cheap and tuning optimization metrics is the norm for most apps.

People having “large” numbers of children.

The modern trend of most families with 0-2 kids isn’t sustainable. We don’t need to go back to 5+ being the norm but a self stable society needs to be able to offset non parents thus requiring 3+ children families to be quite common.

I thought it was clear from context that I was referring to people who want to have kids with a romantic partner (I suppose for fertility rate purposes it doesn't even necessarily need to be with just one romantic partner, or within a monogamous relationship).

Lots of people don't want kids these days relative to 50 years ago, but even among those who do, they're delaying the process, often to the point where it becomes less ideal due to age. Many people who wanted kids when they were younger end up not having them as a result (and many who want them haven't had them yet).

Having a partner (or partners) to do it with is a significant factor for many, among other factors like concerns about affording food and housing for oneself, let alone for additional dependants.

The government also wants stable couples (divorce are costly to society) and non-toxic relationship (because these too are costly), which is also what the users desire.

> Which is often what the users want too.

Or at least to start practicing how to make babies.

There's plenty of other motivators.

I give it about a month before they start gaming the algorithm to pair people who are likely to be on government benefits with people who can support them.

You make $150k, congratulations all your matches are McDonalds crew members.

You make $200k, the same but now they're all mentally ill because the algorithm deems you capable of supporting thyat too.

It's a self-depleting market. The optimum is, a la Big Pharma, to keep 'em in "dating" limbo.-

I don’t think that a market for lemons is the right analogy or how it relates to your other claims. A market for lemons is one where buyers cannot distinguish between high and low quality goods (eg used cars). I think people are mostly ok at judging the ‘quality’ of romantic partners and the problem you describe is a different thing.

I’ve been married for 20 years.

> That’s an irrational reaction

Not if you think that your government isn't looking out for your best interests. A well run state is exactly what we need, but rarely what we have. Right now we see rising authoritarianism, less transparency, open bribery, more frequent and blatant lying, less accountability, more corruption, democratic backsliding, attacks on civil rights. etc. All that stuff is going to breed skepticism, and it really should. Eroding people's trust in government by actively working to corrupt it and impede it from functioning properly has been a very successful strategy.

>That’s an irrational reaction, probably conditioned by ideology.

And yours isn't?

Like it doesn't take much beyond a room temperature IQ to look at the arc of just about every government these days and make an estimation of where it's going without some substantial unforeseen change of course. The state of the world should merit a little pause and/or self doubt there.

>A well-run state has been perhaps one of the most successful enabling factors for human flourishing in human history.

Historically the states that have dabbled in this area of policy area has been "well run" in only the most dishonest "they accomplished their short term goals" sense of the phrase.

> If stats from dating websites are to be believed, all women tend to flock on all the same tiny percentage of men and ignore the rest

This is absolutely not an accidental phenomenon, this is the optimal outcome for dating apps, because that's the only way to prevent women from finding what they are looking for too quickly (and then leaving the app).

For initiating, men are less picky.

For marrying: I suspect they are about as picky?

> If stats from dating websites are to be believed, all women tend to flock on all the same tiny percentage of men and ignore the rest.

These are on platforms where you have profile pics and jobs, front and center on your profile, and the algorithm learns from your preferences based on that. The questions on this platform seem to suggest that the algorithm matches based on anything but that, so perhaps we have different, more open-minded outcomes on what a good partner for someone is like rather than who the ideal man/woman is like.

Monogamy is half the reason this is stable on paper.

In the USA 70% of divorces are women initiated. When filtered to those with a college degree it's 90%

If the goal is successful relationships, then probably?

If I have 10/10 love for Halle Berry, and she has 4/10 love for my Jeff-Bezos-looking ass, it's the 4/10 that's going to dictate whether we live happily ever after. So our mutual compatibility is probably well below 10/10.

I don't think you can measure love at all, and certainly not guess it based on some info you can type into your phone, so that's rules out before we even get started.

I think that overplays the role of war. men did other things in general, such as going out to work and also dealing with other dangers. Even in developed economies male work related death rates are far higher than women's.

Childbirth might remain physical, but it is also extremely safe by historical standards. In the Uk the rate is just over one maternal death per 10,000 births including deaths shorty afterwards, compared to close to 50 in Victorian times (I think excluding subsequent deaths, although i am not sure).

Bearing children might remain physical, and bringing them up is hard work and goes on far longer than bearing them. IMO the solution it to change social expectations so men participate in raising children more. I see this is happening. its best of everyone: less of a load on women, men participate in the joy of having children properly, and kids grow up with better parental relationships and more parental attention in total.

> Before, women would suffer the hardship and danger of childbirth, and in return men would take on the physical perils of war.

The problem with this view is that the VAST majority of deaths in war are civilian deaths, which do not bound themselves by gender. It's only in recent decades that it's possible to contemplate conflicts with as few as 1 civilian death per combatant death, and even then, that's the extreme exception, not the rule.

In non-state warfare, the civilian casualty ratio is even worse--imagine living in "Eastern Europe in World War 2"-style casualty rates as the baseline of your existence. The typical battle in such circumstances isn't "two opposing armies meet on a battlefield, one army emerges victorious;" it's "we're going to sneak into your village, set fire to all your food stores, rape some of your women (maybe steal them for brides), and maybe whack off several of your children."

> In modern society, of course, conflict mostly means playing video games in an armchair.

I rather think most Ukrainian soldiers would disagree with you here.

> and in return men would take on the physical perils of war.

Oh common. Those wars were not for the benefit of women. They were for the benefit of decision making men, the men who ruled. Which were not women. And the men in power sometimes used women as argument for why you should go invade this or that country, but then again appeal to patriotism was even stronger. There are limited situations, like Ukraine today which is defending where the "for other women and children" claim can kinda be made. And even there, fighers are motivated by more then just that.

Traditionally, you was fighting for your male ruler.

The war thing is not deal between sexes. Even today, men are more likely to support invasions, to support parties that lead country to wars.

> Maybe she was still in her party age/too young?

It was the other way around, she never partied. Nice gal.

I don't assume that. The supply of men on dating apps is greater than the supply of women, and they tend to be less picky and more open to short-term mate-seeking behavior. This means that the dynamic of these apps is more fundamentally shaped by aggregate preferences of women.

Why would men be buyers? If the women are raising children what do they get out of it? Will be women and children be living with them? If so they would be parenting so need to be paid too.

It sounds like your idea is that women get paid to have the joys of being a parent, while men pay to get nothing in return.

If the woman and children do live with the man then essentially you are recreating the idea of a male provider married to a housewife, except more transactional and unequal.

    > How might things look if a couple has 3+ kids, and perhaps only one parent working outside the home?

Singapore is so rich and desirable that it can import highly educated people forever. Plus, it is diverse by default/design, so people are quite open to having diverse neighbors.