I was trying to explain federated websites to a friend and she asked if there is a federated dating app. She recently went through a break up and the apps are dreadful as I’m sure many of you know.
It’d be hard to launch a dating system on the fediverse because it the type of service that relies heavily on network effects. People want to be on the dating app with the most people. However, I think there is an opportunity because the mainstream apps are so notoriously awful, monetized, and enshitified.
It could be a community within an existing network or it could be its own website. I don’t know, I’m just putting the idea out there.
I kid you not I was thinking about this TODAY while taking a shower.
I think it’s funny to imagine how silly it would be and everyone would joke around with couch + Vance memes, except for a single couple that actually met and fell in love and everybody asks for updates all the timeIn reality I don’t think it would work, but I have been wrong once before so go for it
Honestly. A FOSS dating site might be enough, it doesn’t need to be federated, I suspect most people would get what they are looking for from FOSS. Also, safety is a big deal on dating sites, I guess defed helps you to not show people who don’t moderate well, but I wonder if a well moderated FOSS dating app is the ideal.
https://github.com/Alovoa/alovoa exists.
As others pointed out, there’s little infrastructure cost recuperating possible with an on-off service model.
Lemmy is among the worst places for this, but there could be something like a standard tag (looking for dates/sex/friends etc) that is hashed against geodata on more personalised accounts (like Pixelfed or Mastodon or Friendica(?)).
Maybe it could be a sub-part of the Friendica idea? That way, you don’t have the problem that once the user is done with the service, they leave. Some profile info might already be there, maybe get a list check-boxes as to which info you want facing the date-service side and off you go?
We should recreate that old OkCupid matching system where users make, answer, and vote on the importance of different questions.
Already did it for https://cupid.careers/… I can easily port it to another site to make a dating Fediverse actor
I feel like not everything has to be federated and this is one of those things
Probably very difficult due to network effect indeed. Also privacy would be a challenge I guess?
This could be used for privacy.
https://gitlab.com/veilid/veilid
There’s also a new technology that allows sharing of proximity data without sharing location. I’m not finding it now, though.
Ps. I tend to think that NOSTR is a far better protocol for this type of idea for the same reasons I’m looking at NOSTR instead of Pub/Sub for my federated inventory idea.
forgot about DMs lmao, thanks blaze for correcting me
Isn’t privacy basically irrelevant to a dating app? you’re giving your own info (headshot, name, hobbies, location i think?) voluntarily. Do correct me if i am wrong though.(There is some information that is sketchy for the company to be collecting though, such as app usage and contacts)Not everything needs to happen in the Fediverse. E.g, you can have the messaging part delegated to email, xmpp, matrix… Then you add a system where the other party needs to send a “request for contact info” separate from the public profile.
It’s more how to keep the information between two people, such as messages. As we know, messages on Lemmy can be seen by admins
Right. I forgot about those. E2EE is probably especially necessary for a dating app.
I think the dating app model that’s currently popular kind of can’t work well for users. They’re all set up so they benefit from users paying a subscription for a long time, but users want to find a match and get out. Those are contradictory.
I think a match making model would be better. Pay a single fee and they try to set you up with someone. They already got your money so their incentive would be to set you up happily so they don’t have to work on you anymore. But users don’t want to pay for anything, so we’ll continue having garbage and garbage incentives.
I am working on website that is Okcupid for Jobs. You follow @[email protected] and it posts questions that help you match with other professionals that might work well with you.
and the apps are dreadful as I’m sure many of you know.
What about Federation would make the apps better?
What about Federation would make the apps better?
Rooting out the incentive the company have for you NOT to find a stable partner and uninstall.
That’s a good point.
There’s no federated dating apps, but the cream of the crop are currently Hinge and Feeld. That changes every few months.
And they all end up being bought by match.com
I think feeld recently was revealed to have all of their information and apis public. Like anyone could find any message and photos, and do CRUD operations on them.
https://fortbridge.co.uk/research/feeld-dating-app-nudes-data-publicly-available/
Also the app kind of sucks, at least as a free user. It does the same bullshit as all the others where it doesn’t actually connect you with people. And some classes of users (eg: women) get bombarded with low quality content while others get nothing.
Hinge also kind of sucks for the same capitalism reasons, but it’s better than the others I tried.
Hey, I didn’t say the crop was great.
Since that research went public, they had a redesign of the app, I dunno if that fixed the security issues, so don’t quote me on that. I do know that their socials are decent.
In general though, dating apps are a female lead experience. Misogyny means that a lot, (most in my personal experience), reject that experience. So where women being the commodity should be finding the men and initiating contact. Instead they believe it’s more romantic if a guy finds them and messages first. I’ve got friends that don’t open the apps except to check likes and respond to messages, not being proactive in the least. There’s a bunch of profiles without faces citing work reasons. Women will demand creative opening messages and then respond with the lamest, low effort response ever. Women on dating apps need to realise they rule the world and lead by example.
I think Bumble has the closest thing to the perfect model, but holy fuck the Match group decided to turn it into a piece of shit. The Match group should be broken up, it’s a monopoly and it’s a hindrance to happy healthy relationships.
Match group 100% should be broken up.
I think a lot of people, of all genders, are surprisingly bad at the skills needed to use a dating app successfully. People dead end conversations and then are like “why aren’t I having fun conversations?”
Like, a profile says “I love SomeBand”. You write “hey! SomeBand is my favorite. Did you see their new music video? I don’t know how they got those cats to act!” And then respond with “no”, end of message. I’m just like my friend, that is not how you use this tool. What do you think is going to happen next?
But yeah, women refusing to take initiative probably isn’t helping. But the roots of that are pretty deep in our sexist society, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Don’t get me started on men on dating apps. Obviously my experience is second hand, but from what I can gather, it’s generally a race to send a dick pic, them thinking money can buy everything, them having as you said no idea how to have a conversation and then there’s the ones that get no response and so start with the harassment.
One thing that I find really perplexing is all the profiles that state, “no pen pals”, what’s the point of being on a dating app if you’re not going to vet people. It’s like letting someone do surgery because they look like a doctor and then wondering why they’re on trial for murdering the village. I just wanna figure out if we have sustained chemistry. If you can’t be arsed to message me for a week or two, you’re not gonna wanna date me are you?!
We have different takes about “pen pals”. I don’t want to message someone for weeks before meeting up. I do like
- initial tailored message (eg: “Your profile says you love Kelly Link! Did you read her new novel? I really enjoyed it”)
- if they respond badly, exit (eg: “no”)
- one or two responses (eg: if they say “No! I’ve only read her short stories! Was it good?” then we can have a brief conversation about it)
- clear any dealbreakers (eg: if i had a kid, i’d ask something like “Just wanted to make sure you saw the thing on my blurb about my kid. Are you cool with dating a single parent?”)
- If that all goes well, ask something like “Do you want to have a date and see if we get along in person?”
That’s it. All done. Meeting up for a drink is low cost and low risk, but very information dense. I can get a better feel for if I want to invest in them after an hour in person than I can with a week of texting.
This is written from the perspective of a man who doesn’t date men. I can’t speak authoritatively about other experiences, but second hand none of my women friends have enjoyed prolonged texting without meeting.
But that’s the thing and of course, it’s all down to personal preference. But if your chemistry and interest can’t survive two weeks, it’s not going to survive two years or two decades. We live in a society where it’s now, now, now and part of our due diligence is patience. Anyone can feign interest over two or three messages, but how desperate are you (not you personally, you get what I mean)? So you take them out, you buy them a few drinks and then what? A couple dinners before you find out they’re not what you thought? The same is achieved with just talking for a couple weeks. But each to their own. If it was one size fits all, the Match Group wouldn’t be able to keep buying apps for millions of pounds. Dating is a means to an end to me, I get that for some it’s a hobby or form of entertainment, but I have better things to do with my time than use it to test if I like someone. I could use that time to spend with someone I’ve already confirmed I like.
I just don’t think spending 2 weeks texting without meeting is going to give useful, accurate, information. The chemistry you’re measuring there isn’t what you’ll have in real life.
A couple dinners before you find out they’re not what you thought? The same is achieved with just talking for a couple weeks
Strong disagreement here. The same is not achieved by texting and fundamentally cannot be achieved. There is too much stuff in body language, voice, and such that you’re just not going to reveal over text. Plus other stuff like seeing how they interact with other people. Are they rude to the bartender? Do they road rage? There are whole worlds of information you can’t get without spending time with someone in person.
“why aren’t I having fun conversations?”
You are taking their question at face value. What they really mean is why am I not being contacted by attractive people?
Maybe sometimes. Most modern apps you can only message if you’ve both signaled interest, so if you’re getting messages from people you’re not attracted to I’d ask why you swiped on them in the first place.
Secondly, if you get a message and aren’t interested, it’s better to just unmatch. If you don’t have time to respond fully now, then just don’t say anything. If you send a half-ass response, you look kind of bad and the other person might bail. Who wants to talk to someone who, based on all available evidence in this scenario, can’t hold a conversation? The main thing on these app is trying to make yourself look good. Making yourself look like someone who can’t compose a sentence isn’t doing yourself any favors.
I’d ask why you swiped on them in the first place.
For women:
- because getting a match (even if from a “maybe”) is always a confidence boost.
- because the abundance of men allows them to be extra picky. If they are matching with 8, 9 and 10s, and you are a solid 8. Your luck with them will depend on how many messages they got that night from 9s and 10s.
For men:
- Shotgun, spray-and-pray approach.
Who wants to talk to someone who, based on all available evidence in this scenario, can’t hold a conversation?
Lonely and/or horny people.
Some of this behavior seems self destructive.
I knew a woman who would be like “I have too many matches it’s overwhelming”. I’d be like “ok well stop swiping and clear out what you have.” She’d be like “no, swiping is fun.” Well, ok, but you’re not making progress towards your stated goal, and you’re wasting the other people’s time.
