I think the author took the wrong conclusions away from his experience. All the questions, all the personalization, all the stuff that apps tried to add to make things better actually made things worse. All they could measure was similarity. They encouraged him to double down on choosing people based on their tastes in entertainment and how they answered cheesy questions, ignoring three factors that perhaps should have been obvious from the beginning:
1. People are already effectively segregated by similarity in their real and online lives, and a dating app does them a disservice by doubling down on this.
2. Difference is an essential part of relationships. How many successful relationships do you know of where one person is spontaneous but liable to do foolish things, and the other person is steady and reliable but maybe a bit boring if left to themselves? Or where one person is an introvert but loves to cook for people and the other person is an extrovert who loves to throw parties?
3. People who try to get to know each other online are often surprised (and disappointed) when they meet in person. Online, you can only get very, very rough indicators of in-person romantic capability, no matter how much time and detail you have to work with. A month of getting to "know" someone online is worth less than five minutes of in-person conversation.
If you agree with these things, why in the world would you use any dating app whose basic premise runs contrary to them?
Tinder was accidental genius. A simplistic swipe left / swipe right app does exactly what you want. You show up knowing you don't know anything about the person, but vaguely excited. It's like glimpsing somebody from across the room and walking over to talk to them, except it's not just for people who enjoy spending time in crowded rooms striking up conversations with strangers who might not be interested in them.
People bag on Tinder because it's superficial. Tinder is genius because it's superficial. It sticks to the only thing that any dating app has ever been good at, and it leaves everything else in human hands. That's why dating apps are converging on the Tinder model. When apps stop doing what apps are terrible at, and stick to what apps can actually help with, there's very little left, but it's extremely useful.
1. People are already effectively segregated by similarity in their real and online lives, and a dating app does them a disservice by doubling down on this.
2. Difference is an essential part of relationships. How many successful relationships do you know of where one person is spontaneous but liable to do foolish things, and the other person is steady and reliable but maybe a bit boring if left to themselves? Or where one person is an introvert but loves to cook for people and the other person is an extrovert who loves to throw parties?
3. People who try to get to know each other online are often surprised (and disappointed) when they meet in person. Online, you can only get very, very rough indicators of in-person romantic capability, no matter how much time and detail you have to work with. A month of getting to "know" someone online is worth less than five minutes of in-person conversation.
If you agree with these things, why in the world would you use any dating app whose basic premise runs contrary to them?
Tinder was accidental genius. A simplistic swipe left / swipe right app does exactly what you want. You show up knowing you don't know anything about the person, but vaguely excited. It's like glimpsing somebody from across the room and walking over to talk to them, except it's not just for people who enjoy spending time in crowded rooms striking up conversations with strangers who might not be interested in them.
People bag on Tinder because it's superficial. Tinder is genius because it's superficial. It sticks to the only thing that any dating app has ever been good at, and it leaves everything else in human hands. That's why dating apps are converging on the Tinder model. When apps stop doing what apps are terrible at, and stick to what apps can actually help with, there's very little left, but it's extremely useful.