My Friends Find Online Dating Broken: Is It Unfixable?

Disclaimer: All names are fictitious; Content rife with anecdotes.

Mumbai man uses Tinder to find a ‘sister’ to celebrate Raksha Bandhan

This Indian Express headline sounds satirical and clickbait-ish, but it refers to a man who found not one but two sisters on Tinder to celebrate Raksha Bandhan with. This shall come across to their product teams as one of the most surprising unintended uses.

I reached out to a couple of friends, both male and female, who have been dating app power users.

There's Hema, Rekha, Jaya and Sushma: all complaining about the paradox of choices and how online dating is a tiring experience which starts feeling like an endless series of interviews.

Then there's Amar, Akbar and Anthony: all complaining about the skewed gender ratio and stories of varying success they achieved with a limited set of matches.

Hema's struggles are real: she has to respond to a sea of messages asking her how she is, what she does, how has her day been and so on!

Of the dozen seemingly witty guys she right-swiped, a few of them turned out to be interviewers, a few passive-creeps, and yet another who 'typz likes diz' (no offence intended). She ended up ghosting them, and un-matching Anthony as his incessant pinging screamed neediness.

Let's take a step back and empathise with Anthony: It was his only match within the past week. Each time he ended up logging in, there she was staring at him. Alas, no more.

Anthony did learn a lesson, only the hard way. He became a nicer chap with each rejection, his future opening messages clocking a greater response rate.

Here's a visualisation of how their stats looked like :

Eternal Curiosity: What Brings You Here?

One of the most undesirable yet common questions plaguing the dating space: What are you on XYZ app for?

There's nothing wrong with the question itself: But curiosity kills the cat if it is asked too early, which usually is the case. The intent is to align expectations early on : oft off-putting.

Folks try different apps, agnostic of their expected outcome: You would find people looking for a matrimony match on Tinder, while there would be others desiring hookups on TrulyMadly. Modelling nuances of user motivation is a tough nut to crack.

From Fareb To Shaadi

Tinder, the highest grosser, is a hookup-first hyper-casual offering: it has the largest audience albeit mostly men.

Bumble is where women make the first move and can choose to display only initials. With more filters, a user-friendly UI, safety features, it wins with ~30% women. Remember Hema, Rekha, Jaya and Sushma: they all absolutely love it.

French-based extra-marital partner finding app Gleeden ironically boasts a 60:40 ratio of men-women, better than the dating behemoths. This could be majorly attributed to the portal being free for women, while men have to shell anywhere between Rs. 1k to 7k depending on the # credits bought.

Gleeden's country manager for India Sybil Shiddell comments:

Unlike in Europe, people marry young in India, and maybe after 10 years or so, start to go on a separate path, even if they are together. Of course, they keep staying together because of family reasons, or because divorce is expensive or separating may take a huge toll psychologically.

Then there's Aisle, Hinge, OkCupid, TrulyMadly which focus on serious long-term relationships and aim to challenge the erstwhile turf of Shaadi, JeevanSathi and Nikah Forever. The 'main khud dhoond lunga/lungi' phenomenon of youth's adversity to arranged marriages is what they try to bank upon.

Not all dating apps are alike, there are 15+ with decent traction within India. Statista sizes overall Indian dating services market (matrimony included) at around $387 Mn.

COVID-19 bloated recent numbers but the growth seems to have plateaued. Unsurprisingly, 72% is contributed by matrimony and it isn't going to change anytime soon. Indians directly marry, they don't date.

User Churn: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

It is not uncommon to find users wanting to find a partner whose worth deleting the app for: "help me delete this app", "let's delete it together", and so on. Wondering what happens if they do indeed meet the one? Having found their prince/princess charming, they both delete resulting in a negative virality factor.

Dating, by essence, has a short shelf-life. The success of the app's stated goals is when two users churn having found a desirable match. It's like the Greek Ouroboros snake (which eats it's own tail): The better the service is, the higher the churn.

User churn within dating is like food fats: generally considered negative for a healthy live but then there are both healthy fats (good) and unhealthy ones (bad).

But how do we measure if it was a terrible or a terrific experience that led to a churn? Off-course there could be deterministic ways to attribute it: like a user who reported another user a few hours ago and exited could have had a bad experience forcing them to leave.

But what about users who mimic normal behaviour but still end up leaving the app? There could be several reasons na? Paradox of choices, negative experiences, having found prospects through another channel, or someone just tired of the concept of dating. It is far too common for users to simply churn.

Could we have a data model that ascertains to a significant degree of confidence the reason of user deleting an account? I doubt. There could be models that predict the user's satisfaction but that too shall be a difficult data challenge predicated on quantifying nuances of human behaviour.

There have been attempts to mitigate attribution of user churn. If you try deleting an account in-app and not directly uninstall the app, Bumble does seek explicit feedback. User churn is a significant problem within dating: The screenshot shows how deleted accounts is a common phenomenon.

Doesn't Online Dating Feel Like Window Shopping?

Everyone's wary of fake people online - on the lookout to discover the true selves in a matter of minutes. It, by design, just isn't possible.

Deconstructing the phases of dating (part my own experience, part observations): You begin as a pair of butterflies within a wonderland with all sunshine and roses.

When enough time passes and a few rainy days later is when you give up pretences and the real-discovery starts. Congratulations having made it to each other's comfort zone.

The roller-coaster ride has now ended and you start seeing bridge within the ocean that leads to somewhere meaningful: the envisioned land of forever happiness.

Yet, the current experience is a mess. The story remains the same, the bridge shall still lie far ahead. But the prospective partner changes within seconds, with each successive swipe. Amar? Left, Akbar? Left, Anthony? Left. After a few dozen more, who's left?

In business jargon, the experience seems to have commoditised people. At times, it feels like we are trying to buy our next phone? Choose, initiate a conversation that seems like a chatbot interaction, and tada. Comment out your thoughts if you have felt the same too?

Fixing the experience is underway: Prompts, Quizzes (Vibe check feature), Travel with me badge. Let's see where it ends up moving to!

Being A Woman In An All Man's Land

The gender ratio is highly skewed, more so in India. Bumble boasts 30% women, while most other apps have over 90% males. It usually is an all man's land, all sorts of men.

"Creeps stay away", "No hookups", "Decent men only" is a common occurrence within female bios. Apps have introduced verified profiles, social integrations with Instagram/Spotify to build trust within the ecosystem. Catfishers beware!

With 3-10x more options at their disposal, women have an undue advantage and end up swiping right less often: only every 1 in 20 profiles while men seem to like almost every other women out there. They be like: Haa Yahan Kadam Kadam Par Lakhon Haseenayen Hai ??

Women, despite being relatively selective with swiping, have a magical power: Ye Kon Hai Jisne Poo Ko Mud Kar Nahi Dekha. Almost 1/3rd of likes turn into matches. These are global figures, I bet the number shall be higher within India.

Then there is the winner takes all issue. Attractive folks account for all the likes/matches: the numbers are highly skewed. The Pareto principle to the extreme: 1% of attractive men receive 90% of the likes. OkCupid's data shared below has another interesting insight.

The number of messages initiated by a women is not a function of their attractiveness, while it is directly proportional for men.

Men: The Cash Cows

For all the reasons we discussed earlier, it wouldn't be a surprise if the ARPU was disproportionately higher for men. It has become a "market of lemons" (Wiki: quality of goods traded in a market can degrade in the presence of information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, leaving only "lemons" behind). Due to the paradox of choices, men have lesser interactions moving them out of the platform until there are just lemons left (Not all men though ??).

Men have limited visibility, lesser # of median matches, more occurrences of being ghosted, lesser options to choose from, and higher distrust quotient. A premium plan is cleverly pitched as the panacea. Getting the desirable match is just a few taps away: Choose a plan, pay, and there you go. All men be like: Take my moneyyyy!

Is It Unfixable?

Enough criticism for today. We discussed at length on how the experience is broken - what now? Let's explore a few solutions, inviting readers to actively participate and share thoughts.

Issue #101 - The Indian Dating Landscape

It's not only online dating that's broken. Dating, within India, is virtually nonexistent. The negative connotation attached with it is the core issue.

No wonder why platforms tweak their marketing/positioning when operating within India. Bumble, for instance, has a feature wherein one could indicate they are looking for a matrimony match.

Hyper-casual, casual, serious, matrimony - the level of acceptance immensely varies for each of the different shades of online dating. It's not only cultural values that determines stance, but also the perceived perils of online dating.

The Fix: Platforms should actively moderate on-platform profiles to filter out fake and troublesome users. Campaigns communicating trust and safety features shall offset major fears associated with online dating.

To fix the negative connotation attached, offline events could be a way wherein the density of target audience is high. A tough nut to track - behavioural change would be painfully slow and unpredictable.

Issue #102 - Visibility For The Long Tail

Remember how only a small percentage of users get the most visibility? The algorithm decides this attractive bunch and pushes them ahead for a better UX across the board.

There shall be certain features that will contribute by a larger margin: Is the profile verified? Has the user uploaded X photos? What % of the profile is complete? Have the linked their social media handles? The list goes on...

Yet, no two profiles are the same. The Tinder algorithm grants each user a score which modifies in realtime based on interactions with fellow users. The ratio of likes/profile views, conversations initiated, average time spent by users on their profile, the score of users who showed interest. The goal is to algorithmically determine an attractiveness value and place you within a league.

The Fix: Yet, the long tail of users complain that these dating platforms don't work. Effective matching could be a way about it. For it to be possible, we require more data from the user.

Explicit inputs are the most accurate but would result in user dropping off - Nobody loves filling in long forms.

Dating should seem like a game, more fun than trite. In-app mini games wherein a groups could socialise would be one way to go about it.

We shall enjoy playing a mini-quiz with a small group and lend more data about ourselves. Cards against humanity sort of a game perhaps, with a strong visual element that delights users.

Issue #103: I Don't Want It To Feel Like An Interview

Being barraged with the same set of questions is a pain. One can't keep responding to the same set of questions. Questions wherein copy-paste responses would work just as well. This is a larger problem for females: They end up choosing not to respond. A bad experience for all stakeholders involved.

The Fix: Quick-prompts that encourage users to share more information about themselves, audio format shall work in reducing friction.

The user need not be required to fill all prompts at once, but encouraging messages with stats on how filling them increases visibility could nudge users.

With more information available to the one who's initiating a message, they could personalise and tailor it accordingly. Though there's not much dating apps could do to train users, but a little more information/education doesn't hurt!

Issue #104: The Cold Start Problem

Dating apps have network effects at play. They are accessible globally yet concerted localised marketing efforts would be limited to certain geographies.

A user from Delhi accessing Bumble would still find several options, but what about someone trying it out for the first time from a Tier II+ city? New geographies, new users, lack of data - recommendation systems easily break in such scenarios.

The Fix: Non-personalised recommendations based on aggregated user behaviour from the larger geography would work. If it still isn't statically significant, geographic expansion to find similar users and learn from their preferences would help. Still a difficult problem to solve for!

Bonus: Fun Instagram Community

Indians on Tinder is a 13k member strong super-interesting Instagram page you could follow. It's the warehouse of funny tinder conversations, unusual bios, and the best/worst pickup lines. Check them out on: indiansontinder

Credits: Swipestats.io, Statista, Google, Personal Screenshots ??