Cached OkCupid Article: Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2

by JacobAldridge • 15 years ago

490 80 15 years ago

webcache.googleusercontent.com

pyre• 15 years ago

It's sort of funny how removing the article has spawned a bit of the Streisand Effect, though I gather it's probably only limited to our little corner of the web. And even at that, it would probably just 'look weird' if they were still hosting the article after the acquisition, regardless of the attention that removing it draws.

famousactress• 15 years ago

I had to look it up..

The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of perversely causing the information to be publicized more widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no contrary action had been attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

mixmax• 15 years ago

Very fitting username

rhizome3• 15 years ago

I must have missed the story on this page's apparent disappearance or whatever.

smokinn3• 15 years ago

Just today OkCupid got bought by IAC which also owns match.com which they are critical of in that post.

presidentender• 15 years ago

Time to enter the online dating space, I guess.

rhizome3• 15 years ago

Ah, I get it now: this is just a repost of a comment from the actual OKC story (where there exists plenty of context, pace Mr. Aldridge):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2169974

siculars• 15 years ago

hey, i'm all for selling out but im not into rewriting history. either leave the post or write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed. dont go rewriting history by trying to delete it.

pavel_lishin5• 15 years ago

> write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed

The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.

apgwoz• 15 years ago

> The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.

It's certainly not wrong, but something has changed. OkCupid now reports to match.com, which is among the largest paid dating sites in the world.

edit I don't know the specifics, but IAC owns Match.com, and also OkCupid, but does that mean that Match.com oversees OkCupid? My statement above might be wrong on that alone.

mhartl• 15 years ago

Approximately 50 million things have changed.

rgarcia• 15 years ago

according to OKCupid's response (http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-ou...) something has changed: OKCupid's CEO "got to know" match.com a little better (through access to more accurate statistics, etc.) and has backed off his previously "exaggerated" stance against paid models

the timing definitely leaves this difficult to believe

rmc• 15 years ago

We have always been at war with Eastasia

lwhi3• 15 years ago

I signed up for OkCupid years ago, probably around 2005/6 .. I liked the site a lot.

The site always had a lot of emphasis on tests and quizes - and had a main OkCupid test, which was used to introduce the site and categorise each new member into different persona-types.

I remember, in the test, there was the line "if you have any STDs please go .. " with a link to match.com.

I expect that's been 'cleansed' from the site too :)

MichaelApproved• 15 years ago

There's a difference between rewriting history and scrubbing it. I think rewriting is far worse offence.

Regardless, I still disagree with the removal of the article.

jarek• 15 years ago

What is the difference between rewriting history and changing history by removing things?

nandemo• 15 years ago

Rewriting history? Come on, the post was a marketing piece. It was written for business purposes and was later removed due to business purposes.

It's similar to Coke buying Pepsi and then Pepsi removing ads that make fun of Nike. Sure, the post was a bit more factual than the average ad but it's not like it was a scientific paper either.

citricsquid• 15 years ago

I'm not sure it's the end of the world it was deleted, it was a conflict of interest and leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for, but on the whole I don't think the article was that bad. It just pointed out that paid dating sites are tricky with their marketing.

holman• 15 years ago

leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for

I don't think that strategy has been working out for them very well so far.

bmm6o• 15 years ago

It appears to be gone. Anyone have a copy?

w1ntermute• 15 years ago

Here's a mirror/copy/screenshot (trying to hit all the browser text search keywords; it's not actually a screenshot):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3232537/html/search.html

dangero• 15 years ago

I have liked OKCupid's posts in the past, but this one is clearly propaganda. There's a pretty obvious flaw in this argument:

"It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com."

The data to back it up is based on Match.com press kit:

"12 couples got married or engaged today thanks to Match.com"

What they're missing is that a lot of people get married or engaged while subscribing to Match.com, but not due to Match.com. Heck, my roommate did. It's not an exclusive arrangement. In fact, it's pretty likely that if someone is subscribing to Match.com they are also dating outside of Match.com.

orangecat• 15 years ago

The other flaw is that by definition people on dating sites are not currently in a relationship (well, usually), so of course they're less likely to get married in the near future. I suspect the 12.4 ratio would be similar for active OKCupid users.

steveklabnik2• 15 years ago

> (well, usually),

Not true for OKC. Very poly friendly.

GrandMasterBirt2• 15 years ago

If you advertise that you lead to a marrige then its not about you getting married today, its that x people who use site y get married every day. Of course there is no garantee that the marrige had anything to do with the site. If person x and y are on a dating site, there is no reason to assume that it MUST be true that if x and y met/get merried it is due to the site. They could meet outside. With 20 million accounts it is VERY likely that you got married to someone with an account on that site.

I like the corelation you can build from the site: By giving you bad matches to increase business, each person looking gets less likely to find someone because they have to send so many emails. Note that the 30% chance to get a response * 1/30 chance that an account is not active != 1/100 chance of a response. The 30% chance to get a response can already take into account that a bunch of people may not be active.

You can play with the numbers. I think the final guesses are not that accurate, but it does put things into perspective regarding the marketing numbers.

hasenj• 15 years ago

Still, it would mean that registering on match.com only increases your chances by 0.4%

alphadog• 15 years ago

It's called "harmonization". China does it all the time.

reinhardt2• 15 years ago

Next time it will probably be "eHarmonization".

weeksie2• 15 years ago

The problem with free dating sites is that they have to be fucking enormous to make any money. OkC is an amazing product with a huge user base and guess what? They had a tiny office and weren't making much money, then they were bought by (shock) a dating site with a sustainable business. IAC/Match sucks but they understand something the OkC guys don't—how to make money from their product.

JoachimSchipper• 15 years ago

Do you have any idea how much they were making? http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-open... suggests $15 million in revenues.

And selling a business with $6 million in investment for $50 million is likely to be lucrative enough, anyway (and you'd hope that they were turning some profits to justify the $50 million.)

weeksie2• 15 years ago

From what I can tell, the article you linked says that PoF is making $15mm in revenue.

If OkC were making 15mm in revenues why in the world would they sell for $50mm? That just doesn't add up. Their overhead outside of bandwidth costs wasn't that high, they employ 10-15 (I think) employees and have a small office in Chelsea or sommat. Their profits would be enormous if they were generating anything near that.

jewgonewild• 15 years ago

I really hope that OKC keeps publishing articles about the online dating scene. They had some good insight about a lot of different online dating phenomena.

Match seems like a shady outfit that would not want to publicize this type of data.

chailatte• 15 years ago

For most American women a $19/month subscription is a good investment for them to sleep around for a while with some bad boys, and when the time comes, marry a chump who will pay her to quit her job, go to coffeehouses and have nice lunches with the other married girls, or get her nails done at the cost of maybe $15k a year. Then maybe divorce him a few years later for a nice change of $100k. Not a bad return at all.

kenjackson4• 15 years ago

It's unclear to me why I shouldn't pay for an online dating site from reading that article? The only thing that he says that really drives that point is that they're incentivized for you to fail. But I'm not sure I buy that, since churn is probably higher when you get no dates than when you're dating but maybe just haven't found the "one" (if that's what you're looking for).

The main argument seems to be that number of profiles and active profiles are different. It seems like the takeaway to me is to be cautious and try to learn the number of active profiles.

araneae4• 15 years ago

The point I got from it is that the girls worth dating don't pay for it. Girls that don't have to work to get guys might sign up for a free site "just for fun" but they certainly would never pay for a dating service.

kenjackson4• 15 years ago

The author certainly doesn't make that point clear. For one, I don't believe it, but more importantly there's no evidence in the post of it.

pointpointclick• 15 years ago

We have always been at war with Oceania.

Legion• 15 years ago

So are we Eurasia, or Eastasia?

jacques_chester• 15 years ago

Whichever has always been at war with Oceania. Please report to minitrue.

citadrianne• 15 years ago

OKCupid responds: http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-ou...

Joakal• 15 years ago

"But Match.com didn't ask OKCupid to take down the post, CEO Sam Yagan told The Observer, it was just the "common sense thing to do.""

"Furthermore, the data that OKCupid gathered from Match.com's public filings and press kit were not completely accurate, he said, which he realized once he saw the real data."

snip

"And even though the two sites are now playing for the same team, it'll be business as usual at OKCupid's Midtown office, he said. OKCupid will remain free and OKTrends will keep publishing the popular research it culls from its members. (Data from Match.com and its affiliated sites will not be included.)"

So, rather than putting up a correction to the previous blog post that due to fresh data showing something different; they decided to take it down. I suppose either because Match.com either refuses to release the data, the blog post is confirmed to be true or they wanted to appease the new owners.

pavel_lishin5• 15 years ago

For a company that's usually so good about publicity, it really seems like they fucked up here.

joelrunyon• 15 years ago

Still wondering why I should care...

maeon3• 15 years ago

UNDELETED! Google Cache copy (for when the Google Cache expires) http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...

GrandMasterBirt2• 15 years ago

I love this article, and I always loved OkCupid for their statistical analysis and myth debunking. I am very saddened that they had to join their competitor. O well.

timothychung• 15 years ago

the original link is dead to me. Clicked text only version and it works. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuo...

Cached OkCupid Article: Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating

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