
Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating - DeusExMachina
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/page/6/
======
DevX101
The folks at OKCupid are absolutely amazing data-story tellers. I've thought
about doing a dating startup (w/ some new & unique features), but these
amazing folks at OKCupid make me think my time would be better spent
elsewhere.

~~~
sarkozy
Agreed. That's the most fun I've ever had reading statistics.

~~~
spokey
Their statistics cover a much more engaging domain than most.

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eof
I recently signed up for eharmony. I was under the impression my 'message' to
someone was an invite for them to talk back without paying.

That actually makes me feel slightly better. I have much, much higher success
rates (and a much lower sample size) of approaching women 'IRL' as opposed to
even getting a reply to a message on a dating site.

~~~
amh
The benefit of the IRL approach is that it gives you an immediate opportunity
to show positive qualities which don't always carry over very well into a
dating website profile -- and you can leverage any physical attraction right
off the bat.

See, the thing about dating sites is: women are in demand, men are not. When
you're in a superior bargaining position, it's a lot easier to be picky. So
women don't give a second thought about discarding profiles for even the most
superficial reasons. Interacting in person gives you a chance to cut through
that and sell your good qualities without having to pass a bunch of filters
first.

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seles
It is quite ironic how OKCupid uses dating sites own stats to show how bad
they are, using only simple math.

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

Wow, this was a sobering wake up call about dating sites.

"That is, a man can expect a reply to 1 in every 100 messages he sends..."

I shall pass it along to a friend who recently started using one, I can easily
imagine what it would feel like to get a 99% rejection rate.

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

Also, people in hospitals die more often than people not in hospitals.

~~~
seles
Indeed there is some trickery with the cause and effect of this statistic, but
still 12.4 is big!

~~~
astine
Let's assume that people generally date about 6 months before deciding to get
married and let's assume that the average engagement is another 6 months.
Given that, there is something wrong if you are signed up for one of these
websites and get married in the same year. 12.4 is small.

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luckytaxi
OkCupid doesn't realize that folks who pay for dating sites are those who are
serious about finding a long term relationship. okcupid, pof among others are
filled with spam and folks who sign up just for fun. I was working on a dating
site and may get back into coding it once I find some time. I've asked friends
who use such sites and all of them said they would definitely pay. Some of
them signed up for POF and refuse to use the service due the ugly gui or the
fact that messages are met with auto replies.

~~~
alttab
POF is trash. I would agree.

However, almost 2 years ago I was suggested OkCupid by a hacker friend, and
now I'm engaged to the woman of my dreams.

If OkCupid wants a personal success story, you know where to find me.

~~~
reyk
Exactly the same story here. I knew one of the OkCupid employees from IRC and
they encouraged me to sign up to check out their matching algorithm work, and
two years later I am still with a girl I met on there and very happy.

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iterationx
When someone is so exasperated / desperate that they are willing to pay real
money to meet somebody - their level of motivation to get married is a factor
or more above non payers, that's really what you're paying for.

------
wccrawford
I ended up just skimming it.

The first problem I saw is that they think they fact that the average profile
only lasts 6.5 months is a -bad- thing.

When you have a relationship, you don't NEED a dating site. This means people
either find a match or give up in an average of 6.5 months.

The second thing I noticed was that they are very down on the dead profiles. I
haven't used e-harmony, but I suspect there's a way to tell when the person
last used the site. Simply don't message people who haven't logged in for
months and you won't have to to worry about it.

Much more useful is the fact that they get 12-15k new customers daily. In 6.5
months, that's a LOT of people to look through. (Yeah, they mostly won't be in
your area, but most of the dead accounts won't be, either.)

~~~
eof
There is not a way to tell when someone has last used the site with eharmony.
At least not immediately.

I live in Vermont and there were like ~50 women within 60 miles within 5 years
of my age on either side that showed up as 'matches' for me to view/message.

If I go another 35~ miles to montreal, there are approximately infinite women
to view/message.

If I expand my search to world-wide it's exactly infinite.

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swombat
Anecdotal counterpoint: I know of at least 2 instances of people who have met
on eHarmony, via paid accounts, and have proceeded to end up in very solid
relationships.

I know no such success stories with OKCupid.

~~~
sjs382
I'm one. Been together 14 months, today. Recently, I joked "we should film a
'success story' commercial for OkCupid." :)

~~~
alttab
Make that two.

~~~
unwiredben
And three -- I met two very good friends and my wife (just had our first
anniversary) through OKCupid.

~~~
alttab
I've seen enough OKCupid success stories on this thread alone I say they
contact us for some free PR :)

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klbarry
So what's Ok Cupid's marriage data?

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tomjen3
Of course they would say that - they are their competitors.

~~~
nck4222
I agree with your sentiment that you should consider the motivations of the
author (in any writing really), but it seems like they've done a pretty fair
job of analyzing the data.

I think the 12.4x marriage rate is slightly misleading, because if you don't
use a dating site then presumably you don't have as much trouble meeting
potential partners, and thus are more likely to get married anyway.

But they did round several figures to benefit the match.com, and the statistic
is impressive regardless.

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Udo
There are more reasons that speak against dating sites in general. I didn't
know OKCupid, so I just spent the last hour trying it out ;-) Here's the deal:

Everybody, really everybody who's a member has something seriously wrong with
them. Sometimes, it takes a while to figure out but I couldn't find ONE
compatible person (the experience was similar with other dating sites I tried
in the past). I'm certainly no exception myself: I'm fat and ugly, and this is
no self-deprecating crap, I mean it. And the girls on there are all either fat
and ugly as well, or they're religious fanatics, gold diggers, trolls, creepy
athlete stalkers or other kinds of groupies, future axe murderers, offensive
and off-putting in their profile text, not looking for anyone right now, or
(the funniest kind) their profile is one big stream of complaints about how
everybody wants her sooooo much and would people please stop sending her those
yucky messages already.

Hey, I might get nothing in real life, but at least RL is not as degrading as
working the fruitless treadmills that are dating sites. Interesting and hot
people can get dates anytime and anywhere, no online presence needed. The rest
of us are just screwed.

~~~
ctide
Your notion of everyone having 'something seriously wrong with them' holds
true everywhere. It's a core tenet of what makes us human, it's not isolated
to people on dating sites.

Have you never heard the phrase 'no one is perfect?'

~~~
Udo
I don't want to lose any more karma over this, but that isn't at all what I
was talking about.

