Game Theory Applied to online Dating

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Part of the success for these sites is the high cost of entry in terms of time required to fulfill the initial questionnaire—which could take from 1 up to 18 hours. Creating this cost for the players increases the probability that the site is viewed as credible. Matched players also assume that the time taken to fill out a questionnaire is a cost to the player filling out them out an hence information is viewed to be more credible. An additional feature is the high-end online matchmaking service which provides members with personal and professional matchmakers who help hand-select their dates from the pool of millions of regular subscribers.

All these sites capitalize their enormous database of subscribers to create value. This relates back to the theory of economics where the potential of finding a mate increases with the size of the market ( thick versus thin markets[5]). Extrapolating this theory, it is more beneficial for players to seek a match in the city or an area whose odds are in their favor. To illustrate, dating websites do not seem to have a high success rate in cities like New York for women where the women to men ratio is 2:1.

TINDER:

This App essentially provides players with two options Swipe “Right” to like another player or swipe “Left” to pass. If the other player has also liked you a match is created and you can start messaging your match via the app (note: it does not matter on tinder which player makes the first move). Being aware of this structure it is evident that Tinder is an app where players play for Volume, that is they maximize their payoff (potential for getting the right mate) increasing the number of “right” swipes. However, difference in behavior due to gender preferences create a dominant strategy for men, there is no dominant strategy for women. To illustrate, women are very selective with their swipes, given this men should swipe right all the time to maximize the probability of a match. To relate back to movie “ a Beautiful mind” which was a biography on John Nash, at a bar Nash suggested to his friends to never go for the blonde ( going for the the less attractive women increased the chances of success i.e Nash equilibrium); the same strategy can be extrapolated into the game played on tinder where men increase their probability of success by swiping right even for women they would consider less attractive with the premise that the more attractive women would turn them down on the app. To breakdown the analysis, lets say a male player can go through a profile within 0.7 seconds, rounding that up we can assign a -1 seconds for quick swiping. Then, a match happens to occur and the player can decide whether they want to message their match. Being an exclusive (dominant strategy ) right swiper for a man is only a bad idea when he gets matched so often that the cost of instant swiping is greater than the cost of considering a profile up front i.e the selection for the male happens prior to the messaging phase ( mathematically it is only possible when 75% or more of the other players swipe right on a man’s profile). It is important to note that given different perceptions of what is deemed as attractive such a scenario is unlikely and on average men should swipe right to maximize payoffs.

Given the dominant strategy for men to swipe right on tinder, women become even more selective with their swipe(second degree game theoretic analysis), thus reinforcing the cycle of “ men should always swipe right and women should be selective with their swipes”. As an app if Tinder’s ultimate goal is to really increase “real” world interactions they should accept the equilibrium that is come of this and modify the application so that men automatically match with every woman that swipes right on them.

Bumble:

Bumble is a dating app founded in late 2015 by Whitney Wolfe, a co-founder of Tinder and from which it replicates some concepts, that is, users swipe right when a profile picture looks interesting for them and swipe left when not. If two people express interest in each other (two people swipe right for each other), the option for a chat becomes available. It had 12.5 million members registered in February 2017, and it is also open for same sex or friendship relationships (in these cases some rules do not apply and this paper is written based on heterosexual interactions). Bumble tries to target millennials, especially the population between 18-27 years old (72% of all users are under 35), and its users also tend to be well educated [6](91% of the users over 22 years old have at least a bachelor degree). In part for this reason, it is perceived as a more “serious” dating app when compared to Tinder. In order to verify the authenticity of each member, Bumble only accepts registrations with a Facebook profile and encourages people to use real photos and to be who they are. Also it only accepts people over 18 years old.

Bumble position itself as the “app for someone who would never use dating apps” (trying to overcome the prejudice created by the lemon law) and differentiates by giving more “power” to women. This is achieved by stating some rules as women have to be always the first ones to start a chat, and that has to be made within 24 hours after a connection (both swipe right) is made. This strategy aims to disincentive the dominant strategy played by men, describe above for Tinder. Man can request that a particular woman has more than 24 hours to initiate a conversation, in case the initial 24-hour period is almost over, however this can only be done with one connection per day. This particular rule also avoids that a man has a dominant strategy used in Tinder of extending all the chats as he has to be thoughtful about with which woman he is going to use this benefit. If no chat is started in that period, the connection will disappear forever. This “woman first” approach positioned Bumble as one of the dating apps/websites with lowest abuse report rates, 0.08% currently, suggesting that a situation of equilibrium, where both parts are satisfied with the outcome occur more often.

Some critics states that Bumble will never achieve the same success as other apps like Tinder because it goes against human nature: men like the challenge of having to pursue a woman, which is greatly reduced in Bumble as women are the ones that have to start a conversation. On the other side women would feel uncomfortable in making the first move and thus fewer chats are started. Given the hurdle that women need to overcome to be the first one to text, when they do text the probability of a successful match increase. It should be noted like tinder men still play the volume game but unlike tinder the conversion