This post reads like Eternal September[1], and I write that without any cynicism or snark. It makes good sense that text-heavy web apps would fall prey to image-heavy mobile apps. I still think there is potential for dating apps that target higher intellect users. Most of the dominant apps today are mobile-first, largely visual, and disappointing for both sides. One idea: Could speech-to-text technology help to allow users to create OkCupid-style essays from a mobile phone? Maybe. Although, a few discussions here on HN said that speech-to-text is still a super hard problem in 2023.
I think that there is a reason that dating apps, dating sites and dating services all converge on a model which downranks intellect: the few humans who care about that characteristic are not enough to build a sustainable business.
Literally everyone says that they are different and want a smart partner, but when they actually hook up they aren't ranking high intellect.
I liked okcupids blogs. The maintakeaway I had from reading all of them was:
1. How much appearance played a role in being attractive.
2. 90+% of women attempted to hook up with the same 10% of men, while men were much more open to women not in the top 10%.
3. What people claimed they wanted in a partner had almost no relation to what they actually wanted, when looking at who they messaged, who they viewed, and who they responded to.
All apps now are very aggressively tracking everything, so they have a much better idea of what makes people open their wallets, and intellect apparently isn't one of those things.
I don't think you're characterizing the results accurately, particularly point #2. I don't think they really had a way to measure #3. #1 is just obviously true but doesn't add much.
> I don't think you're characterizing the results accurately, particularly point #2. I don't think they really had a way to measure #3. #1 is just obviously true but doesn't add much.
Maybe not, but #2 was from a blog that specifically looked at the data of messaging: how many men received messages, how many women received messages.
IIRC, nearly all the women received messages and sent messages, while only about 10% of the men received messages while all of the men sent messages. I don't really see any other way to interpret data showing that both men and women sent messages at about the same rate, but only about 10% of men received any messages.
Now I don't have the blog handy (and I rather wished I did), but my takeaway #3 was from reading all the blogs available, in basically one marathon sitting, not from one particular blog.
It strikes me that if women and men sent messages in exactly the same long-tail shape of distribution, and you had a knob that controlled how frequently each sent messages, you'd be able to turn each knob until 100% of women and 10% of men received messages.
This is not to say you're wrong or right, but I don't think the numbers tell us much without seeing the full distribution.
> I still think there is potential for dating apps that target higher intellect users.
Apps are not developed for the sake of the users. Apps are developed in order to make a profit.
If your higher intellect users are not ready to pay good money for your product, it can only be one of two things: either they are cheap, or your product is not that great. Considering that there is no correlation between intellect and cheapness, I would exclude the first hypothesis.
Then you end up with a crappy product (and it was your higher intellect users who voted it crappy) and a bunch of advertisers ready to pay you bread crumbs for your users' attention, and you suddenly realise that you need a lot of crumbles to get a sandwich.
In the case of OkCupid, I did buy the premium offer, and used the possibilities (mainly see the answers to the quizz, and filter people) to make a profile that would show 99% match score with the kind of women I was looking for.
At some point, it got close to a game, which was very fun and satisfying as I could meet nice girls as a result ;-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September