Federated Dating App?
Federated Dating App?
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.
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.
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
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
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.
I am working on website that is Okcupid for Jobs. You follow @thecupid@cupid.careers 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.
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.
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.