Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Your nightly dose of unfiltered opinions and unexpected conversations. The Last Show with David Cooper. Dating apps. They claim to promise love at your fingertips. But what if they're actually optimizing for your loneliness? Let us swipe past the potential romance on these apps and dive into their business model, which shapes how and whether you end up connecting with someone.
I'm here with Mathieu Legend, a marketing professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, who's recently researched and written on this. Mathieu, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me today. You would think like Tinder and Hinge and all these apps are trying to get me to find the love of my life. You'd think they would be optimizing for that.
Chapter 2: What do dating apps claim to offer versus what they actually optimize for?
But things aren't so simple with these apps, are they?
No, they're not that simple. You need to consider the app as a business first, you know. So love is not the end goal. It's more like a commodity, you know, like it's a mean to make profits. So on those apps, I would say you're not the user, you're the product.
You're producing value for the platforms. And why would I use my monthly subscription to a dating app if I'm no longer dating?
Chapter 3: How do dating apps prioritize business models over user love?
So there's this perverse incentive for these apps to sort of get you to think you're going to find true love and de-platformed. But in reality, they may not want to do that.
Yeah, no, the goal is eventually for you to be like, I would say like a microtasker. Basically, you're doing a microtask on the platform, producing data, producing micro labor for the platform so you can generate revenue and profits. So you are looking for love, obviously, but eventually the work that you're producing on the platform is generating a lot of value and profit for the platform.
So the more you get hooked to the platform, the more you produce and the more you're profitable.
Now, if you're a theoretical CEO for a theoretical dating app and you're trying to come up with a business model, would the goal be that users never actually delete it while tricking them to think that they will?
Well, OK, that's the thing. That's the tricky part of it. Like, obviously, you need to somehow provide the value to the users as well. Otherwise, it's like no one is going to buy it and then no one's going to stick to the platform. It's more like consider it like a slot machine, you know? You had a chance to win the big jackpot, but you need to play and you need to play for a long time.
So you have like a bucket of coins and then you put one coin and another one and another one and you get something, but you can get even better if you continue to play. So that's the thing. I have played on this slot machine for an hour. I already spent $500. Why would I stop now if I can just put one more coin to get the jackpot? You know what I mean?
So eventually you need to get something, but it's never, never...
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Chapter 4: What is the true nature of users in the dating app ecosystem?
good enough for you. You just continue to sweep and then to continue to play.
There's even, and I'm not accusing any particular dating app of doing it, but there's this perverse incentive for them to keep my ideal mate away from me, right? Like they could use AI and stuff to figure out who my ideal partner was and not give them to me because they would rather me get mediocre partners, go on a date, have a pretty good time, but then go back on the app.
This is the kind of, if we look at this from a purely business standpoint, this could be incentives for apps like this.
Yeah, that's right. You know, there's something that everyone should consider here. There's a difference between a market and a platform. On a market, you pay for a commodity, you pay for it, you pay the value, and you get the value. That's that easy. If you're not satisfied, you go to another business, to another company, you pay the money, and then you get the value.
But the platform doesn't work like this. You don't pay to get the value. You work through the platform and the platform will organize the matching. So you have, you, David, you have your own preference. I don't know if you prefer the blonde, if you prefer the brunettes or whatever you prefer.
It's redheads. My lovely girlfriend is a redhead, Miranda. Yeah.
All right. Here we go. So you prefer the redhead. That's your preference. But on the other side of the platform, you have other users with their own preferences as well. So the platform is organizing the matching based on your preference, but also the, let's say, redhead girl's preferences as well.
We might prefer blonde guy rather than short, awkward, ugly black hair.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: How do dating apps create a cycle of dependency for users?
It's organized as a matching process. So if you want to get the best match, you need to work. You need to work on the platform. It's not just I pay, I get it. It's not a market.
Now, if I'm on one of these apps swiping left and right, is the app incentivized to keep me feeling like someone better might just be one more swipe away? Sort of like pulling the slot machine. If I pull it one more time, then the biggest jackpot is up next.
Yeah, it's basically the idea is to give you, you know, it's like when you are browsing the feed on your Instagram account. You don't get the exact type of content that you like every time you sweep. You know, like you have to scroll down for a bit to eventually get the content that you like, the content that is going to hook your attention. And that's the point.
If you get every time what you need, you will get bored and you will just give up. So we need to keep you, you know, like you keep your attention hooked to the platform. So sometimes you get what you expect. Sometimes not. That's the reason why you continue to sweep or to scroll, because you think that eventually you will get what you need or what you want.
So for people using these apps and not finding love and feeling kind of burned out on online dating, is it their fault or is it really because these apps were designed to make them feel that way?
Well, here's the thing. Platforms basically teach us that we are the architecture of our own success or failure. If you want to succeed, it's up to you. Buy the premium. Buy the options that are going to improve your profile on the platform. respond to the notification as well. Continue to sweep. You know, you have to produce this labor if you want to succeed.
Now, if for any reason you consider it's too expensive, it isn't worth it or whatever, you will be responsible of the failure. So the platform is basically what I would say a techno-solutionism Use the technology, buy the technology, and if you do it, you will get the results you expect.
If you don't do it, it's your choice, but eventually don't complain because you are responsible of this choice, right? So the idea that people get tired and drained out of those platforms is also because they produce a lot of labor, but eventually the value is not delivered.
They end up being the value for the platform themselves. The platform's not giving them value. What do you recommend to people? Like, is this changing our dating culture in not great ways? And if it is, what can we do instead of swiping left and right?
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Chapter 6: What incentives do dating apps have to keep users engaged?
And finding someone, you know, like take the time to go out and then to have a conversation and seductions and all of the like takes time and takes resources as well. So when I go on this platform, it's just because I want to compress my time. So while I'm sweeping on my platform to find someone, I can also check my emails. I can work. I can take care of my kids or family or my job or whatever.
You know, I can compress my time. So I feel like even if I say, no, don't go on this platform, you know, it's better to have a more kind of traditional way to meet someone, but eventually doesn't address the deep issue that we have in this society that we are running everywhere out of time.
And that's the reason why dating platforms or any other technology or any other platforms are so successful. It's because we need to buy time. When you order on Uber Eats, for instance, It's because you don't want to spend your time cooking and washing the dishes and all of the like. So you prefer to allocate this time to something that's more valuable to you. And the same goes for dating.
So even if I say, go out, meet people, talk to people in the bus or in the street, yeah, but it doesn't address the real problem. You know what I mean?
I do. And then if I'm left feeling lonely while I'm busy, these apps sort of like thrive off of my loneliness. They're not really solving it.
no and and you know again as i said when we started the conversation you don't need you don't have to see those platforms as solution it's just a business and i will commodify the need of people willing to meet a partner and then i can extract value and money because they would produce data that will produce my co-work i can you know use those data for advertising targeting or Whatever.
Well, you can read more from Matthew Lejeune's research in this area. He's got an article in The Conversation called What Dating Apps Are Really Optimizing. Hint, it isn't love. Matthew is a marketing professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Mathieu, thank you so much. I enjoyed talking to you.
Thank you very much, David. Thank you.
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