379

Destruction of OkCupid as an attack against its liberal-skewed user base (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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The destruction of OkCupid by Match Group looks like a politically motivated attack against the minorities and intellectual power users who used to flock there.

OkCupid used to be the best place to match diverse people.
They crowdsourced thousands of multiple choice questions from which you built your search filter:

Which answers you accept
How important each is to you
Your answer for the other side of the match equation
Voluntary explanation

The match results were factored into friendship, dating, and sex. "Friendship" contained ethics and communication style, so it also worked for business partnerships.

Then Match Group bought it.
For a while they let it be, but then they:

Removed the factoring - no more looking for friends or sex, only complete packages
Removed search - no more finding the best matches anywhere on the planet, now you just swipe like Tinder
Removed keyword search - no more finding niche interests not included in the questions, like "furry"
Removed the search filter - now everything has to be the same to match: both of you must have or not have tattoos for example, never mind what you like - one of my likes went from 95% to 50% match
Deleted the voluntary explanations without warning, so no one could back theirs up
Deleted ~95% of the match questions without warning
Deleted all accumulated likes, which were the best matching people around the world with maximal couple/friend/sex partner potential except, for example, location for now. They broke the profile links, so bookmarks became useless.
They delete matches (mutual likes) if they haven't been messaging in a while, as if that meant they're not a match - no, they have a temporary problem, such as life situation
They police inconvenient statements in the users' introductions as the political situation evolves - the day after the mass murderer healthcare insurance CEO got shot, the section in my profile containing (for months) "fuck the healthcare system - make a better one" was deleted without sending me a copy to edit

Avoid dating services owned by Match Group.

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[-] jmiller@lemm.ee 149 points 1 week ago

That is a real shame, I met my wife on OK Cupid. We liked it for all those features that are gone now. I've recommended it to several people over the years, guess I'll stop doing that.

As for being politically motivated, maybe? But my first guess would be that the changes were driven by immediate profitability factors. Because really, what is more important than quarterly and annual profit reports?

[-] v_krishna@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 week ago

Also met my wife on there. Together for a decade now, 6 year wedding anniversary this spring. Iirc we were a 99% match. Which in hindsight is funny because even though our moral sensibilities and lots of our interests/hobbies are very aligned personality wise we are very different (but complementary for sure)

[-] IHawkMike@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

This almost describes mine and my wife's experience to a tee.

I feel bad for anyone trying to date online in this enshittified world today.

[-] iheartneopets@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago

Met my husband there about 9 years ago! Got married in '23 and had a baby last year :)

[-] veroxii@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago

My wife and I are as well. Used OKCupid 15 years ago and it was something like 98%. And while we definitely like different things and have different personalities, there has never been a foundational difference. On the important stuff we are incredibly aligned.

[-] Draces@lemmy.world 114 points 1 week ago

I think it's much more likely they destroyed it because it worked and was free. It didn't keep users on the platform swiping endlessly and that's bad for it's more profitable apps

[-] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago

Yep met my wife on OkCupid. Been together for going on 12 years now. Sad to hear it's been destroyed. Why the fuck is this group allowed to monopolize the dating apps?

This shit is sick and needs to be torn down.

[-] DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 48 points 1 week ago

With how much of dating happens over these apps, it's crazy how much damage Match Group could make if they deliberately wanted to.

You could deliberately match everyone with only the worst possible matches, hide the gokd ones so no one has kids.

They could practice Eugenics breeding some master race.

They could empower sex offenders.

etc.

There is zero oversight or transparency. They could do all of these things already or more and we would have no idea.

You could probably destroy civilization by having that much control over the dating market.

Not that they are doing that, but I'm just saying, that's a HUGE moral hazard.

[-] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

If they got access to the DNA data that many companies collect to analyse heritage and health, the eugenics could work well.

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

By "work well" you mean damage society

[-] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If they'd choose to do dysgenics, sure. Why though? Making a slave race?

Eugenics could be used ethically to improve humanity

Improving humans via new eugenics by transhumanists is compatible with human rights.

We allow natural mutation to produce illness and other problems. Why not design babies?

Gene editing will be cheap and widespread. What laws produce ethical results? Should personal eugenics be a human right? How about parental eugenics? Which baby designs are ethical? Don't say the current natural ones, because many of them are unhappy, ill, or die young.

Misplacing the blame

Genocidal people having used eugenics as an excuse for mass murder doesn't make eugenics itself bad. Blaming eugenics does nothing to prevent further genocide with excuses. Hate does genocide, the various excuses do not.

(Similarly, over-optimistic fools slamming one version of communism on a whole country without prototyping different versions in villages first, crashing the whole country, doesn't make communism itself bad. Blaming communism does nothing to prevent foolhardy mistakes in societal change. Development should be nimble, prototypes should be cheap.)

We don't ban money because it's used to hurt people - we regulate dangerous stuff to protect human rights. Or, should regulate.

Eugenics works on animals:

Dogs have better social skills than wolves = eugenics.
Some dogs have trouble breathing = dysgenics.
Stray dogs in the wilderness are worse hunters than wolves = dysgenics in that environment.

Humans could be better:

Humans could be designed to work well in their lives:

No disease, no ailment, unless asked for by patient candidate.
Happy childhood in a family where everyone's personality is compatible with each other, DNA-matched.
(can even be done by trading babies, without gene editing)
Happy working career, DNA-matched.
'

Humanity could be better:

Humanity could be designed to work well in its evolution:

Better thinkers for avoiding disasters.
Fewer born sociopaths, less risk of human extinction on purpose with future weapons.
(If a time comes when anyone can make humanity-ending technology, we may have to ban undesigned babies on a whole planet. Separate free-range planets for dangerous organic humans.)
Fast adaptation to environmental changes, such as Mars colony in unhealthy 1/3 gravity.
Better disaster survivability through diversification.

Separate the human kinds from incompatibles

Echo chambers (countries, languages, professions) are cultures protecting their own environment from incompatible cultures. When a group of people demands seemingly absurd laws, they should be allowed to apply those laws to all volunteers, babies being non-volunteers with universal rights. At least personal eugenics should be legal, like body modification is now. Ear piercing is a modification some abhor.

Transhumans and conservatives need to stay away from each other, and current technology could help: phones could navigate people, routing incompatibles around like oil and water. On shared ground, weirdos would always happen to be on the other side of the street. Train cars and elevators filled with groups of people approximately their own kind. All cars good looking on every commute, timed just right for people's tastes. On the web, OkCupid and Quora used to be good at that, matching tastes and interests.

Do the opposite of what the for-profit sensationalist media does, smearing the wildest progressive stunts in the conservative's face, because rage sells, anger is addictive. The blame is mistakenly placed on the depicted, not the media breaking people's boundaries by pushing incompatible people into knowledge of each other.

[-] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 3 points 1 week ago

TIL Match Group = The Bene Gesserit

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago

Dating apps have never been compatible with their business models. Even without the politics, they’re motivated to keep you on the site and using it forever instead of finding a longterm partner and going on with your life.

The only actual business model I’m aware of that’s compatible with finding a partner is a traditional marriage-focused matchmaker, as often used in traditional Indian arranged marriages. These matchmakers work best as a lifestyle business where the matchmaker personally knows the families involved and relies on (usually her) reputation, so can’t just run off with the money if the marriage doesn’t work out.

[-] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Changing the business model from pay-to-play into escrow-held matching success reward would change dating.
If a user likes another, and wants more matches of the same kind, they must admit the dating company was successful, and the escrow pays them.
If you choose not to release the payment, it means the match was bad and the matching algorithm must be corrected according to your stated reason for dissatisfaction. If you hold on to the deposited money despite success, your matches get worse.

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

That sounds at least somewhat plausible but I’m still skeptical.

I think the core problem is the loss of trust in our society. This of course is not limited to dating but is everywhere, affecting almost everything, and it’s taken place over the past few centuries. We’ve gone from a village lifestyle (where everyone in a community knows each other and relationships of all kinds are lifelong and reputation is extremely important to uphold) to a metropolitan lifestyle where everyone is anonymous and mass media predominates, and by far most relationships are temporary transactions (even in retail stores).

This latter structure of mass anonymity does not foster trust in any meaningful capacity and so is not conducive to partnership formation, among many other things. News media has similarly suffered catastrophic loss of trust due to the erosion of the classified ad business model and the consolidation and cost-cutting which followed.

[-] tanisnikana@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago

I lost the first messages my wife sent me on OK Cupid and I’m quite heartbroken about that, but I have my actual wife with me still and she adores me.

[-] tektite@slrpnk.net 24 points 1 week ago

Does anyone remember the study guides on sparknotes.com?

There was also thespark.com and they started sparkmatch.com... which became okcupid.

It feels like it was another lifetime ago.

[-] beebers@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I remember!! I signed up on OK Cupid back in the day because I just wanted to take the quizzes that were on thespark.com

[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Remember, tech companies don't see success in your problem being solved. The tech company wants you as close as they can get you to the carrot, close enough to believe you're about to grab it, without ever actually letting you even touch it.

That used "marketplace" doesn't want you to find the product you want to buy, it wants you to scroll and message sellers to boost engagement...

The dating app doesn't want you happily paired...

That food delivery service doesn't want you to love that restaurant, they want you to search again next week....

[-] beefbot 5 points 1 week ago

Ain’t no money in the cure!

[-] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

True. The objective is profits, not serving the customer well.

[-] ownsauce@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago

Would it be feasible to make an activitypub based successor?

It was a great service to find people with similar worldview, values, and interests.

[-] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

There's an open source dating app, I think its called alovoa? I think I remember seeing discussion on the subreddit about activity pub but I haven't followed it or used the app for quite a while

Pretty sure it's on f-droid though

[-] r00ty@kbin.life 7 points 1 week ago

The problem I see in trying to implement it using AP is that a node on an AP network knows nothing about other nodes by default. Whereas a dating site wants to match people with as many other likely partners from the pool available. These two features aren't really compatible.

You'd need some kind of "master list" of instances, which isn't really how AP decentralisation is meant to work.

e.g. lemmy/?bin. A new instance knows nothing about other instances when first setup. It works like a standalone forum. However a user, if they know a community name and instance name, they can search for that combined value and their instance subscribes to the remote instance. After that they will receive all new content for that community.

So it's a subscription based system.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

You could have location based instances as most people will be mainly interested in contacts geographically close to them. Federation would be more of a nice to have feature in that case for nearby cities that run their own instance for example.

[-] r00ty@kbin.life 4 points 1 week ago

Yep. But then the need for federation at all is a question mark. I guess users could "subscribe" to whole instances or some categorical subsets. Like lemmy/?bin you'd be able to see those other instances/categories on your own instance if someone else specifically added it before.

That's about as close as you could get I think. Doing a full search on criteria could only match your own instance and others that are sending data to your own.

[-] courval@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

This is an example of a monopoly very few people know about and it's deeply concerning.. How can we decentralise these human social tools?

[-] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 13 points 1 week ago

Some of those names are quite funny when read in other languages. In Portuguese, azar means "bad luck" and chispa means "get lost" (though spelled xispa). Both are not things I would expect a dating app to be named after.

[-] Dagnet@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

And yet perfectly describe my dating life

[-] moody@lemmings.world 3 points 1 week ago

In French, hasard, pronounced like azar, is just luck or randomness, neither good nor bad.

[-] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

The same with "azar" in spanish.

[-] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 1 week ago

That's interesting. I've translated it as bad luck for simplicity but in Portuguese, azar is its own thing and works like the opposite of luck.

[-] tiefling 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

OkC is how my partner and I met 4 years ago (tw4w)

It was the most queer friendly dating app, especially if you were looking for more than a quick bang. From my experience, Tinder and others were primarily full of unicorn hunters and polycules

[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 13 points 1 week ago

Um…I searched “tw4w acronym” and I could only find that it’s an abbreviation for the Singaporean stock exchange?

[-] tiefling 14 points 1 week ago

(trans) woman for (cis) woman

[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

Thank you! I was way out of the loop on that one. I bought about it hard and wasn’t anywhere close lol

[-] Welt@lazysoci.al 2 points 1 week ago

Same, guess that's AI search results for ya

[-] MissyBee 5 points 1 week ago

I was on there on and off for some years. It went worse everytime I came back. They all suck now or are irrelevant/not enough users. The hot new thing are app based dating platforms which suffer even more from attention seeking and manipulating you.

[-] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Match Group’s stock is down over 80% from it’s peak in 2021.

[-] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Try before corona vs now. Going down from 2021 doesn't say much as it was outlier situation caused by lot's of lockdown and people not going out.

[-] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Damn, I was about to start using this again.

[-] Senseless@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

Tried OkCupid last year for about two months. As a slightly below average looking guy in europe I didn't have a good time. I like the diverse topics of questions and that you can compare them to other people but that's about it. Bait likes (same as on Bumble) that only appear once you're not paying because in order to see who liked you, you have to pay.

Hinge is also owned by Match, but that's the only App that ever brought me some actual dates.

[-] Lumelore 2 points 1 week ago

Same experience here, although I'm a trans woman. Most likes I got were from couples unicorn hunting... At this point I've pretty much given up on dating apps.

[-] Senseless@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

It never occurred to me that this was a thing. Sorry to hear that.

[-] Blackout@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

This is how the sisterhood in dune got started, from a dating app to one day birthing the next Kwisatz Haderach

this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025

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