
An app that limits technology in online dating - vega_empire
https://singlespotapp.com/?id=4
======
Invictus0
This is the tenth time this has been posted in the last month, stop with the
spam.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19323084](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19323084)

~~~
donretag
The site should just be banned for spamming
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=vega_empire](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=vega_empire)

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warp_factor
Great idea.

It is exactly my complain with dating apps: They shifted most of the dating
scene online in a predefined "boring flow". It is unfortunately extremely rare
nowadays that people approach each other in real life. I think there is a
couple reason why that became the way it is:

\- Online dating app wide acceptance made it in such a way that it became the
"expected flow" through which dating occurs.

\- Trying to approach people offline is now seen as more and more awkward
since less and less people do it.

\- I also feel like the whole #MeToo and political climate makes it more
difficult to approach people of the opposite gender as more people are now
worried that it could be wrongly seen as sexual harassment.

~~~
willio58
If you ask someone out in real life and they feel awkward about it, first of
all you should realize that asking someone out IS kind of awkward inherently.
It’s not a very normal occurrence in life. But if someone is totally weirded
out by it then they are obviously not the type of person you want to try
dating. It’s like a natural filter for people who can’t handle real life
interaction.

~~~
warp_factor
Yes it should be awkward, but at least in my experience in the past this was
expected to happen. And the person on the other side of the awkwardness would
mostly be receptive from the tentative approach.

I feel like nowadays, because it is so much easier (but fake) online, most
people simply gave up all tentative of approaching//being approached in real
life.

I mean meeting people in real life still happens, but it is getting more and
more rare//isolated and awkward unfortunately. I guess we live in a society
where everything needs to have a well defined flow and be well codified.

~~~
metalliqaz
It seems to me that outside of SV and the pages of hackernews, people still
interact "normally". These people are called extroverts and the enjoy talking
to other people, even if they are strangers. Someday I may be able to study
these strange creatures, but my efforts have been hindered by their tendency
to call me "weird" and walk away before I can make proper scientific
observations.

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telesilla
Woman chiming in: I'd only consider using this if it were Bumble-like, ie. the
women can choose who sees them. Like, men don't even get to swipe until
they've been selected first (then of course, men get to choose too). It's a
good idea in theory but all the comments here are well too realistic.

~~~
rl3
A system that effectively marginalizes half the population into a dating
underclass isn't really a solution. If anything it just creates more problems
like resentment further down the line. Not to mention how such a system would
even handle people who are genderqueer, for example.

I get the safety aspect of it, and I get fact it's an easy way to cut down on
a lot of toxicity, but it's a shortcut that's fundamentally antithetical to
equality in the long run.

There's likely a way to maintain the same level of safety for everyone, but I
suspect it'd involve a lot more effort on behalf of the platform.

~~~
metalliqaz
Equality? whaaaa? Being a man, and given the context from the OP, I assume I
would be in that marginalized population? But no. I'm not going to get any
attention from disinterested females anyway. This is how the human species
seems to work. I would volunteer to use a system that preselected my list of
possible mates to those who actually want to hear from me. It really saves me
a lot of rejection, which is nice.

~~~
rl3
Ceding control to algorithms is dangerous, though. It kills the human element,
the magic that could've happened if only you were given a shot.

Algorithms make assumptions that are often wrong, and if the platform is
prevalent enough, you're effectively forced to submit to it since everyone
else does.

Worse yet, some platforms will actively prohibit creating a new account, so
you effectively end up tied to the worth placed on you by a proprietary
algorithm.

~~~
metalliqaz
What algorithms? The described system is controlled by the human female
customers.

~~~
rl3
I may have read too much into the wording of your description there, my
apologies.

Still, who you're shown to and how often is very much algorithmic on existing
platforms. People with high rankings are typically shown first and thus get a
disproportionate amount of attention.

For the system you describe to work equitably (setting aside one gender swipes
first), you would need to be shown in non-ranked fashion to users. Major
platforms generally don't do that right now for a myriad of reasons which
include supply/demand realities, user retention, and straight up greed.

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pingpongchef
> Alice decides to go talk to Ryan

Never gonna happen. Or more realistically, not going to happen in large enough
numbers to consider as a possible scenario.

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ravenstine
It's only a matter of time before Match Group buys this, forces the display of
full names, changes the UI to favor ego validation instead of serious dating,
then lets it slowly rot in the shadow of Tinder.

Needless to say, it's a great idea. Just don't buy into more complicated
dating models that ruin everything or let yourselves become another brick in
the wall of the online dating monopoly.

~~~
skocznymroczny
It's unfortunate, exactly what happened to OKCupid. It used to focus on
profile text and descriptions. It's gradual, because they don't want to scare
all their users, but with each update it's becoming just a swipe left/right
Tinder clone with focus on profile picture only.

~~~
metalliqaz
It doesn't sound like your implication is that OKCupid doesn't know what the
market wants. I think we can assume that OKCupid is following the market in
doing what you describe. In other words, giving online daters what they
want... or at least attracting the kinds of online daters that earn them
money.

Perhaps the kinds of online daters that aren't superficial attention-seekers
don't end up earning very much money for the companies.

~~~
outsidetheparty
I think this is exactly it: the big problem with dating apps is that every
time the product succeeds, they lose two customers. The better the product,
the lower your user retention rate.

Tinder-style hookup apps don't have this problem, at least to the same degree.

~~~
blackflame7000
There’s always people falling in and out of love or new people waiting to find
their match. I don’t think it’s a resource limit but rather a how do I get
more people to use it to replenish the ones who left. Even couples have single
friends that they try to set up, maybe a feature to aid in finding a 4th wheel

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ve55
While the idea is neat, I have seen this on HN several times already
(searching, it looks like probably around 8 submissions of this url by you
from two accounts). It will probably take some actual marketing for your app
to get the userbase you'd like it to, rather than just constantly posting it
to HN.

~~~
areyouseriousxx
Especially since HN skews male and the success of a dating app is dependent on
it's ability to onboard female users.

Which is also why this won't be successful. Female users overwhelmingly prefer
the current state of dating apps for various reasons that I won't get into
here.

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thereisnospork
I get what they're trying to do, but I how do they get around the sausage-
party effect of tinder? It would seem unlikely that women would be comfortable
dealing with that sort and volume of attention in person? Maybe if they took
the bumble approach where one side is anonymous or semi-anonymous?

~~~
identity-haver
This might work even if women don't check in, as long as they are on the app.
Besides, single guys mobbing an easily accessible bar where there are a lot of
single women and scaring them all away within a couple weeks happens all the
time already, sans app. This is what bouncers / face-control / cover are for.

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mongol
A grocery store where I live advertised that the blue shopping baskets were
for singles, while the red were the ordinary ones. Despite being single, I did
not want to pick a blue one. Maybe I should have. They got plenty of press but
I don't know if any matches happened.

~~~
warp_factor
because society still associate being single with a bad trait (I guess the
logic being that if you are Single there must be something wrong with you).
You therefore don't want to expose publicly that you are single with a blue
bag.

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grawprog
Ryan checks out the singlespot map and notices a large group of single ladies
checked into a place.

Ryan's profile contains fake pictures of him allowing him to check in and see
who's in there without exposing himself.

Ryan notices one of the single women that checked in and proceeds to watch her
all night as she gets dangerously intoxicated.

Ryan follows her and makes his move.

~~~
metalliqaz
Ryan doesn't need the first two sentences. He can just go to the current
trendy bar or club in town.

~~~
grawprog
Yeah, but a map identifying a bar that has a large number of single people
helps. Especially when it comes with pictures you can use to identify those
people and possibly other personal information. Say tracking a specific
individual over places they check in over a period of time, stuff like this.

~~~
metalliqaz
It doesn't sound like Ryan cares if they are single.

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standardUser
I love the idea, but in reality I don't want women I'm not interested in
approaching me at a bar. For women, it's even worse. The nice thing about
'traditional' dating apps is you each get to screen each other before any
interactions.

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vitalus
Seems hard to get enough users to make this worthwhile at any given bar -
people have to adjust their "out at a bar" time to include checking into a
dating app.

The right growth strategy here seems a lot more localized - targeting specific
bars/nightlife districts and seeding from the ground up. Can't get any useful
signal from 10,000 users if they're all spread out across North America.

I say that after seeing this app promoted on HN a few times now - probably not
a super effective growth channel.

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rl3
I hate to be critical, but that explainer video is so 2012. Whenever I see
one, it signifies to me that the founders are out of touch with modern
stylistic requirements for a successful startup.

That said, Match Group has a veritable monopoly in online dating right now as
a direct result of a myriad of unethical behaviors: manipulation and
subsequent monetization of people's self-esteem for profit, algorithm design
that effectively demands broad appeal which in turn marginalizes certain LGBTQ
groups.

The list continues, but for the sake of a healthy society I really hope
someone figures out how to crush Tinder and all its clones soon.

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laszlokorte
There's nobody in my area using the app. But great and simple idea I thought
about building something similar.

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User23
The best thing about online dating is that just approaching a woman and
talking to her like a normal confident man makes you stand out already. Part
of being confident is gracefully, even playfully, accepting when she’s
disinterested, which will be often for even high status men so get used to it.

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atomical
I think a dating app that focused on introductions through phone calls would
be be effective. Texting is not very engaging.

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Simulacra
[https://xkcd.com/642/](https://xkcd.com/642/)

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jbverschoor
Orrrrrr. Say hi, and interact!

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torqueTorrent
That doesn't sound exploitable by stalkers whatsoever! </sarc>

