Just today I started in the often advised book by Christian Rudder from 2015, from OkCupid. And yes, this one-dimensional thinking seems to be prevalent amongs this kind of people.
I very much prefer a dating website where I don't get the idea that I am an experiment. I want to meet someone with similar views on a relationship, views based on giving, trust, you know, the simple things. People who want other things, like traveling, will probably find similar minded matches.
I don't think many people involved actually believe this or actively think this way.
That being said, the result does have some similarity to how the physical world operates in large gatherings like primary schools or military, where people of similar attractiveness and few differences in their supportive ability would congregate. People figure out where they are on the consensus-attractiveness scale and match with people in the same range. This doesn't match how the world outside of that works, and therefore almost all guys and unattractive women have the same result on dating apps. For dating apps they haven't figured out a better solution, and don't want to or need to as it is also a perfect frustration feedback loop for them.
Don’t believe that’s accurate for superlikes. Those tend to get put near the top of the pile.
But, if you are a much lower rank, and use a superlike on someone higher ranked, the likely result is a quick swipe left.
But with a regular swipe you won’t be seen at all.
Basically just like in multiplayer game matchmaking, you get matched with people of a similar rank and never even see the people of different ranks. So if you yourself are matching people of lower ranks (ie. less visually attractive people, you know what the consensus is whether that matches your preference or not), that means you yourself have a lower rank and are not even shown to people with higher ranks. You might see higher ranked people, might super like them (like everyone else), might form clever a message because you paid for that feature too, but they will never see your profile.
There are articles claiming the dating apps don't do this kind of ranked matchmaking anymore, but did you know they even used to? so yeah imagine believing them.
These apps are not good for your mental health, and your own behavior influences other people's ranks whether you wanted it to or not. Caveat emptor.