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Why pay $500 a month to get blocked? You can get ghosted for free already
This thread is full of people laughing at people who would pay for this, but I actually kinda empathize.
I got REALLY lucky and met my now fiancee on a dating app. It took about 2 years of trying to meet her, and in that time ithink I had maybe 5-7 dates. ALL of those were on OKCupid, back when it let you message people without matching. I am not the most good looking person, but I could get a good first impression through a message.
Tinder though? It killed my self confidence when I used it. I never got a single date from tinder. It is designed tonot get you dates, unless you're SUPER attractive, especially if you're a man. A lot of it is that there are so many more men on dating apps than women, I know that objectively. But it SUCKS when you're actively looking for a partner and swiping every single day to either never get matches or get matches who are bots.
For a lot of guys like me being able to get a good first message in feels like the only chance, and if you're seriously looking and starting to feel desperate (and these apps are designed to make you feel desperate) then dropping $500 for a month of being able to get a shot may not actually seem crazy.
These apps have designed a "dating economy" around themselves that tells people that they are not attractive or a desirable partner if they aren't getting matches, then deliberately tailored their algorithms to manipulate people into coming back every day for a chance to meet someone. It's slot machines, but with romantic relationships, and it convinces people that dating is like gambling. And these apps want you to feel like they are the only way to date, and if you're not "winning" and getting dates they make it clear that it's YOUR fault, and if you drop a little money you'll get some matches.
Yes, some creeps will pay for this to send dick pics, but I think most people who will pay forthis are actually desperate and convinced that it's their only chance at getting a date. It's disgusting these apps are allowed to do what they have done. And I say all of that as someone who won the damn slot machine jackpot and came out with a long term partner.
I personally think these apps are doing some serious harm to our society and need to be regulated but that's a different discussion
I used to use OKCupid, and it was so much better than Tinder. Unfortunately, Tinder's success changed the game and it seems like all the dating sites follow its general form now. On old OKC people would write freaking novels in their bios, in addition to answering hundreds of questions. On Tinder, if you have even two complete sentences in your profile, you're an outlier. It's an explicitly, aggressively shallow platform.
I don't think the old message-anyone method scales well, though. Dating sites are far more popular today than they were back when I used OKC. And even back then, every woman I knew who used it turned off notifications because it was overwhelming.
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On Tinder it would not be in the same context that what you experienced. In OKCupid it's part of the rules that you can send messages without a match. So people are OK (I guess) with it. On Tinder it's going to come as unexpected and unwelcome. You will start with a disadvantage. Unless the woman is only interested in money (if you can spend $500/month on an app then you are probably among the wealthier half of the population).
I agree, but that just makes this even scummier on Tinder's part. The people who own and make the app know that, they're doing this anyway. So they're targeting people who are already desperate and lonely, and giving them what they will inevitably see as a "lifeline" which actually may make their chances worse.
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I had a similar thought. While I agree with the chorus that this is creepy AF and I in no way condone it, as a man who had to wade through these garbage dating apps to, fortunately, meet a long term partner I can attest to the profound sense of loneliness they cause. When I think back on it I can honestly see why some might consider this.
These apps suck, but in today's world they aren't always optional. My specific situation was living somewhere new at the beginning of the pandemic. It wasn't really possible to meet people organically.
Edit: spelling
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If I can just tell her how awesome my penis is she'll fall madly in love! Right now she has no idea!
Only for the dick pic to contain a sad lifeless husk of a genital, complete with a strange bend to it.
That's why I pay for the $1000 a month "ultra supreme user" tier which doesn't allow me to get blocked!
$500 per month?? At that point just go to a prostitute a few times a month. The people paying for this are stupid, but on the other hand it's super sad that Tinder even made this subscription. They know some desperate people are going to subscribe.
I don't know what the going rate is but I assume that if you just want a throw you could probably get a mid tier prostitute almost once a week for that price.
Probably 3 times a month for in a western country. If you are in a long term relationship that is probably around the same amount of times you are getting laid.
The problem is that the people that would pay 500 to tinder are not the kind of people capable of a long term relationship. Even their fleshlights pray for manufacturing defects so they can get out of long term service.
Three times a month for a long term relationship seems really low to me. Over a decade married and ~3-5x a week.
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/how-often-do-happiest-couples-have-sex-it-s-less-ncna828491
Once a week or so is the average. I'm at about the same amount of time in a relationship as you and we're about once a week. Personally I feel like sex is nice but it takes time and effort and I'm not always in the mood to spend time pleasing someone else (and I'm not going to initiate unless I'm willing to do that). I could see myself having sex a little bit more often if I had a better work-life balance where I felt less pressed for time. This gets me thinking that I should check in with my partner about this topic though!
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This is such a disgusting way to think about relationships, I don't wonder why people are lonely.
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Many years ago™ OkCupid actually had a good system, before it revamped itself and got bought by Match (Tinder).
In the old version of the website, you could answer any amount of questions from a huge catalogue of sometimes very obscure and specific questions and look for people who had very similar (or very different) answers overall. You could chat freely with everyone and had the option to look just for (platonic) friends.
I had incredibly interesting discussions with people who were at the opposite spectrum of my answers. And I made a few acquaintances and two amazing friends who still are my friends today, one is even my roommate for 8 years now! I also found a group of white hackers and Linux enthusiasts for real life meetings and we still hang out occasionally.
Two other friends of mine looked for and found romantic partners there and they are both happily married to the partners they found via OkCupid back then.
It went all down the gutter when people used the "platonic friends" option to get into your pants.
And when OkCupid tried to make more cash by pushing into the sex/romance market more and copying dating apps.
I don't think something like this would work anymore. Dating apps and the weird culture and thinking about a "sexual market" seem to have broken humans or something. This asinine idea is just another symptom.
OkCupid really used to be awesome. I would not have met my spouse, had I not checked it out because of the amazingly interesting and varied questionnaires.
I'm so sad that it was made shitty.
My wife and I actually met on OkCupid, happily married for 8 years now, and dated a few years before that, so safe to say I haven't been there in 10+ years.
Sad to hear it's gone down the drain, it seemed the least vile of the available options 😓
Absolutely LOVED the questionnaire aspect of okcupid. At one point I ran out of questions you could answer. Met some fantastic people using the app.
I also met my boyfriend back then like 7 years ago. It was the best "dating platform" that I ever used. Had a lot of great conversations with many people all over the world. Came back to it a few years ago but they already changed it to a more tinder type of way. It was very disappointing.
My wife and I also met on ok Cupid. Just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary.
Did they get rid of the questions? That was the most awesome part of OkCupid. Because you not only answered the questions but you could pick if you cared what your potential matches answers should be.
I met my wife on OkCupid, we were a high % match according to OkCupid and we did turn out to be a great match. That's stupid if they got rid of that.
There's a big conflict of interest in dating apps: if you're successful you stop using the app, and of course the company doesn't want that.
But if everyone has a shitty experience with it, they won't recommend it or even tell people to stay away from it. But if it works well, they'll praise it, thus gaining more users.
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This move seems absolutely wild, and I think Match knows it; which is why it's only available to such a small segment of users.
If too many users have this feature (and who knows how many that would be?) it''s going to scare away all the regular users. What's the point in swiping no if that user can just veto your decision anyways?
This move reminds me a lot of what I've heard about mobile gaming. The 500USD/month users are whales, but the whales need regular people to play with or they'll get bored and leave.
Right now, keeping the number of whales to a minimum is important to keep the regular users happy, but I wouldn't be surprised if in the future some cost/benefit analysis shows that they can take the hit on regular users to squeeze out a few more whales.
It also seems like a bonkers move to pay 500 dollars to talk to someone who doesn't want to talk to you, too. (But that's a different issue.)
They'll milk it when upper management is ready to cash out to massively grow short term profits so they can all take huge bonuses. Then they'll replace upper management with scapegoats who can be there to absorb shareholder blowback and try to rebuild something of value from whatever's left.
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Tinder power users sound like extremely poor dates.
They sound like the type of people who would refer to themselves as "High Value Men".
If you want to rip off rich, desperate men, here's how: just wait for a message from someone you haven't matched with.
Catfishing just got so much easier
Time to make a new profile with a few AI generated photos... 🤦
"Your hands look weird in all your photos, what's up with that?"
"...I have a condition."
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Enshittification at its finest.
This is going scare away regular people and especially women pretty fast.
If someone pays $500+ to talk to me, I'll talk back.
Also: I feel like this is gonna lead to most women on Tinder leaving Tinder after they get flooded by creeps. Rich creeps, but still creeps.
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One of OKCupid's founders - Christian Rudder was in a band called Bishop Allen (along with Justin Rice). Awesome band. That has nothing to do with this thread - just thought I'd recommend you check them out.
Sir, This Is A Wendy's
Genius product strategy indeed. However it sucks for the "victims" I guess who will now get messaged by people they did not match with.
That's half my rent
Whoever thought about this idea is a freaking GENIUS.
So they're gonna spend $500 a month to spam some chick's inbox.....and still have no rizz lmao
That should make things easy for gold diggers
You have it wrong OP, Tinder has become official in its online pimp status. Those who have been using Tinder to sell sex are the ones most likely to be charged.
Surely this is just validating SA and misogyny.
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this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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