
Cached OkCupid Article: Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating - JacobAldridge
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2
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pyre
It's sort of funny how removing the article has spawned a bit of the Streisand
Effect, though I gather it's probably only limited to our little corner of the
web. And even at that, it would probably just 'look weird' if they were still
hosting the article after the acquisition, regardless of the attention that
removing it draws.

~~~
famousactress
I had to look it up..

 _The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to
hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of
perversely causing the information to be publicized more widely and to a
greater extent than would have occurred if no contrary action had been
attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following
a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence
inadvertently generated further publicity._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>

~~~
mixmax
Very fitting username

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siculars
hey, i'm all for selling out but im not into rewriting history. either leave
the post or write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed. dont
go rewriting history by trying to delete it.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed

The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.

~~~
apgwoz
> The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.

It's certainly not wrong, but something has changed. OkCupid now reports to
match.com, which is among the largest paid dating sites in the world.

 _edit_ I don't know the specifics, but IAC owns Match.com, and also OkCupid,
but does that mean that Match.com oversees OkCupid? My statement above might
be wrong on that alone.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Oh, I meant nothing changed in their original analysis of match.com.

~~~
jlees
Well, presumably now they have access to the _real_ , not benefit-of-the-
doubt, numbers. Which only makes Match.com look worse...

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dangero
I have liked OKCupid's posts in the past, but this one is clearly propaganda.
There's a pretty obvious flaw in this argument:

"It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you
don't subscribe to Match.com."

The data to back it up is based on Match.com press kit:

"12 couples got married or engaged today thanks to Match.com"

What they're missing is that a lot of people get married or engaged while
subscribing to Match.com, but not due to Match.com. Heck, my roommate did.
It's not an exclusive arrangement. In fact, it's pretty likely that if someone
is subscribing to Match.com they are also dating outside of Match.com.

~~~
orangecat
The other flaw is that by definition people on dating sites are not currently
in a relationship (well, usually), so of course they're less likely to get
married in the near future. I suspect the 12.4 ratio would be similar for
active OKCupid users.

~~~
steveklabnik
> (well, usually),

Not true for OKC. Very poly friendly.

~~~
ahlatimer
It might appear so, but a friend of mine who's in a poly relationship gets
harassed fairly frequently on OKC because she's married.

~~~
araneae
I've been on OKC for about 8 years, been poly on there, met poly girls there,
had poly friends there, never once heard of anyone getting harassed for
polyitude.

I'm not saying it didn't happen... but it might be kind of like saying "planes
aren't safe, I had a friend that was in a plane crash."

~~~
ahlatimer
Sorry if it came off as me saying that people in poly relationships aren't at
all welcome on OKC, just that it's not universally welcoming.

I'd imagine how welcoming people are to others in poly relationships largely
depends on where you are. People in El Paso, TX (where my friend and I live)
are likely less open to that sort of thing than people elsewhere.

------
citadrianne
OKCupid responds: [http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-
ou...](http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-our-matchcom-
bashing-blog-post)

~~~
Joakal
"But Match.com didn't ask OKCupid to take down the post, CEO Sam Yagan told
The Observer, it was just the "common sense thing to do.""

"Furthermore, the data that OKCupid gathered from Match.com's public filings
and press kit were not completely accurate, he said, which he realized once he
saw the real data."

 _snip_

"And even though the two sites are now playing for the same team, it'll be
business as usual at OKCupid's Midtown office, he said. OKCupid will remain
free and OKTrends will keep publishing the popular research it culls from its
members. (Data from Match.com and its affiliated sites will not be included.)"

So, rather than putting up a correction to the previous blog post that due to
fresh data showing something different; they decided to take it down. I
suppose either because Match.com either refuses to release the data, the blog
post is confirmed to be true or they wanted to appease the new owners.

~~~
pavel_lishin
For a company that's usually so good about publicity, it really seems like
they fucked up here.

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rhizome
I must have missed the story on this page's apparent disappearance or
whatever.

~~~
smokinn
Just today OkCupid got bought by IAC which also owns match.com which they are
critical of in that post.

~~~
presidentender
Time to enter the online dating space, I guess.

~~~
patio11
Can I counter recommend this? If you're good enough at SEO or online marketing
to have a chance in hell at a broad online dating opportunity, there is more
money available for less work and less competition elsewhere. The space is
competitive, the incumbents are some of the savviest firms online, they have
gigantic warchests, the fight will be dirty, and there is easier money
elsewhere.

Plus you're competing with OKCupid, which is to linkbait as AirBnb is to PR.

~~~
biot
Dating sites are #8 on "Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund":
<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

~~~
nostrademons
Dating sites have very strong network effects. The entry on that page
acknowledges that: if you want to start a dating site, the question you answer
is not "What should we do better about online dating?", it's "How will we get
our initial users and keep them?"

Patrick's point is that if you have the skills to get users in a business with
network effects that strong, there are many more lucrative markets you could
crack. EBay, for example. Online auctions is hugely lucrative, orders of
magnitude more than dating, and EBay sucks in many ways. But their network
effect is so strong that it's virtually impossible to break in.

(Online auctions is #10 on the list, BTW.)

~~~
nuckingfutz
Solving the 'chicken and egg' problem has lead to a catastrophe in large
dating markets:

Abandoned accounts and men->women spam.

I think a smaller dating site would prosper quite well if it could eliminate
wasting people's time. eHarmony has a good practice in this regard, but
eHarmony is also marriage, christian, straight focused - and excluded all
others.

A dating site that disabled user accounts that hadn't logged in or responded,
initiated conversation eHarmony style, and somehow limited the spam that men
send, well... that'd be worth checking out. It would drastically raise the
signal to noise ratio.

For spam: perhaps you can only send one message per day to new people, and one
message per person per reply. Choose wisely.

Also, for every uploaded picture, grab the date it was taken and put that on
the page. Might not stop hackers, but that's a small minority.

Other effects to combat: the ego inflation effect, where having many virtual
'options' makes you more selective.

Maybe even a 'ask a friend' feature, where you email a reply history to a
friend and ask their advice (helps with network effects).

There's LOTS of room for innovation here, essentially.

------
pointpointclick
We have always been at war with Oceania.

~~~
Legion
So are we Eurasia, or Eastasia?

~~~
jacques_chester
Whichever has always been at war with Oceania. Please report to minitrue.

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alphadog
It's called "harmonization". China does it all the time.

~~~
reinhardt
Next time it will probably be "eHarmonization".

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kenjackson
It's unclear to me why I shouldn't pay for an online dating site from reading
that article? The only thing that he says that really drives that point is
that they're incentivized for you to fail. But I'm not sure I buy that, since
churn is probably higher when you get no dates than when you're dating but
maybe just haven't found the "one" (if that's what you're looking for).

The main argument seems to be that number of profiles and active profiles are
different. It seems like the takeaway to me is to be cautious and try to learn
the number of active profiles.

~~~
araneae
The point I got from it is that the girls worth dating don't pay for it. Girls
that don't have to work to get guys might sign up for a free site "just for
fun" but they certainly would never pay for a dating service.

~~~
kenjackson
The author certainly doesn't make that point clear. For one, I don't believe
it, but more importantly there's no evidence in the post of it.

~~~
araneae
Well, it's the first line of the post. But they don't go into that aspect as
much as I'd like, because I think it's the more important one.

I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because
desperation is an honest signal of poor quality. But that's just anecdote.

~~~
kenjackson
_I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because
desperation is an honest signal of poor quality._

That's the same thing people say about free software. :-)

With that said, I think you may confuse desperation with efficiency. If I were
single in this day and age, I would certainly use pay dating sites (assuming
prices were reasonable). Not because I'd be desperate, but it widens your
network considerably, and you don't have to waste time at bars, clubs, social
mixers, etc...

And given the number of colleagues and friends who have met people online --
I'd say the superficial quality at least (looks, jobs, education, humor) seem
to be higher than average.

In any case, the article provided no evidence either way. What would have been
useful is for them to show proof that women on pay sites are less desireable
than women from say, MySpace ;-)

~~~
araneae
I have met people online, and known people who have met people online, but
they were all on okcupid or other free sites; never on a pay site. I didn't
say all online dating was like that, only pay sites. A free site does widen
your network, but I think the point of the post was that paid sites have
mostly dead users and therefore the network is rather small.

V.v. free software, I think the better comparison is between a free dating
site and free software; lots of people contribute to make it better. Certainly
it's partially true with OkCupid; users do add a lot of the content, writing
match questions and quizzes.

~~~
kenjackson
_A free site does widen your network, but I think the point of the post was
that paid sites have mostly dead users and therefore the network is rather
small._

But he doesn't argue this effectively. In fact a free site would be worse in
this regard -- especially for the scarce resource (women -- who I suspect are
often free on paysites, as they are in some nightclubs).

As a female (which I'm not), I'd rather be listed on a pay site than a
freesite, if the main issue I have is too many emails from guys.

It almost would appear that desperate women would be on free sites -- since
paying a nominal fee for first level filtering would indicate a less desperate
act than someone who opted for greater volume, even at slightly less cost.

In any case, I think we can both agree that the blog entry didn't really
address in a satisfactory way the central thesis.

------
weeksie
The problem with free dating sites is that they have to be fucking enormous to
make any money. OkC is an amazing product with a huge user base and guess
what? They had a tiny office and weren't making much money, then they were
bought by (shock) a dating site with a sustainable business. IAC/Match sucks
but they understand something the OkC guys don't—how to make money from their
product.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Do you have any idea how much they were making?
[http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-
open...](http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-openness-is-
the-key-to-success/) suggests $15 million in revenues.

And selling a business with $6 million in investment for $50 million is likely
to be lucrative enough, anyway (and you'd hope that they were turning some
profits to justify the $50 million.)

~~~
weeksie
From what I can tell, the article you linked says that PoF is making $15mm in
revenue.

If OkC were making 15mm in revenues why in the world would they sell for
$50mm? That just doesn't add up. Their overhead outside of bandwidth costs
wasn't that high, they employ 10-15 (I think) employees and have a small
office in Chelsea or sommat. Their profits would be enormous if they were
generating anything near that.

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citricsquid
I'm not sure it's the end of the world it was deleted, it was a conflict of
interest and leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for,
but on the whole I don't think the article was that bad. It just pointed out
that paid dating sites are tricky with their marketing.

~~~
holman
_leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for_

I don't think that strategy has been working out for them very well so far.

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jewgonewild
I really hope that OKC keeps publishing articles about the online dating
scene. They had some good insight about a lot of different online dating
phenomena.

Match seems like a shady outfit that would not want to publicize this type of
data.

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bmm6o
It appears to be gone. Anyone have a copy?

~~~
w1ntermute
Here's a mirror/copy/screenshot (trying to hit all the browser text search
keywords; it's not actually a screenshot):

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3232537/html/search.html>

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timothychung
the original link is dead to me. Clicked text only version and it works.
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuo...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2&hl=zh-
TW&strip=1)

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joelrunyon
Still wondering why I should care...

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maeon3
UNDELETED! Google Cache copy (for when the Google Cache expires)
[http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...](http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html)

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GrandMasterBirt
I love this article, and I always loved OkCupid for their statistical analysis
and myth debunking. I am very saddened that they had to join their competitor.
O well.

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chailatte
For most American women a $19/month subscription is a good investment for them
to sleep around for a while with some bad boys, and when the time comes, marry
a chump who will pay her to quit her job, go to coffeehouses and have nice
lunches with the other married girls, or get her nails done at the cost of
maybe $15k a year. Then maybe divorce him a few years later for a nice change
of $100k. Not a bad return at all.

