A Boring Dystopia

Remember, tech companies don't see success in your problem being solved. The tech company wants you as close as they can get you to the carrot, close enough to believe you're about to grab it, without ever actually letting you even touch it.

That used "marketplace" doesn't want you to find the product you want to buy, it ways you to scroll and message sellers to demonstrate engagement

The dating app doesn't want you happily paired...

That food delivery service doesn't want you to love that restaurant, they want you to search again next week....

Match Group’s stock is down over 80% from it’s peak in 2021.

This is an example of a monopoly very few people know about and it's deeply concerning.. How can we decentralise these human social tools?

Damn, I was about to start using this again.

Does anyone remember the study guides on sparknotes.com?

There was also thespark.com and they started sparkmatch.com... which became okcupid.

It feels like it was another lifetime ago.

I think it's much more likely they destroyed it because it worked and was free. It didn't keep users on the platform swiping endlessly and that's bad for it's more profitable apps

That is a real shame, I met my wife on OK Cupid. We liked it for all those features that are gone now. I've recommended it to several people over the years, guess I'll stop doing that.

As for being politically motivated, maybe? But my first guess would be that the changes were driven by immediate profitability factors. Because really, what is more important than quarterly and annual profit reports?

I lost the first messages my wife sent me on OK Cupid and I’m quite heartbroken about that, but I have my actual wife with me still and she adores me.

That chart pisses me off, they have comodified companionship and exploited lonelyness in every single way.

This is not news, but for the first time made me realize how huge this is.

OkC is how my partner and I met 4 years ago (tw4w)

It was the most queer friendly dating app, especially if you were looking for more than a quick bang. From my experience, Tinder and others were primarily full of unicorn hunters and polycules

Dating apps have never been compatible with their business models. Even without the politics, they’re motivated to keep you on the site and using it forever instead of finding a longterm partner and going on with your life.

The only actual business model I’m aware of that’s compatible with finding a partner is a traditional marriage-focused matchmaker, as often used in traditional Indian arranged marriages. These matchmakers work best as a lifestyle business where the matchmaker personally knows the families involved and relies on (usually her) reputation, so can’t just run off with the money if the marriage doesn’t work out.

With how much of dating happens over these apps, it's crazy how much damage Match Group could make if they deliberately wanted to.

You could deliberately match everyone with only the worst possible matches, hide the gokd ones so no one has kids.

They could practice Eugenics breeding some master race.

They could empower sex offenders.

etc.

There is zero oversight or transparency. They could do all of these things already or more and we would have no idea.

You could probably destroy civilization by having that much control over the dating market.

Not that they are doing that, but I'm just saying, that's a HUGE moral hazard.

are there any dating apps/sites that don't suck?

Everything is either paywalled to fuck and back or beyond useless. Mostly because of Match Group, but even the few I've tried not owned by them are also shit.

Would it be feasible to make an activitypub based successor?

It was a great service to find people with similar worldview, values, and interests.