It could be the case that say, only 10% of dating site customers end up in a relationship, and this 10% amounts to 50% of the total couples, and the math would work out.
E.g.: suppose the total population is 1000 people, 500 of which are on a dating site, and the total number of couples is 20, 10 of which were formed via the dating site and 10 of which were formed by other means, and 960 people are out of luck.
If they design the system right, their audience just won't marry or have long term stable relationships
debatable if it got more prevalent because of them, as afaik the statistics indicate both, less short _and_ less long term relationships, so :shrug:
Though to be clear, just because I think the other more stable thing is valuable to folks even with the availability of the sex slot machine, I still don't love businesses trying to push slot machines or any kind really.
(Not a rhetorical question - as a queer person who's never used a dating site or app and who's been in a long-term relationship (now married) for almost 8 years now, I really do have no idea what people do on there.)
Where in the past women settled for a number of reasons, including economic and societal/familial expectations, they no longer do. And because women are much less apt to settle down, men settle down less too. More free women = more free men = less committed relationships. (assuming we are seeing fewer committed relationships - I didn't fact-check that)
Not at all scientific, just a vibe.
Therefore, with increased ability to live independently, expect more risk adverse behavior, which means a larger percentage of the “bottom” of the dating market goes uncoupled forever.
I’ve heard women unironically say “I want him to fuck my life up”. Risk aversion is only a trait in the poor or those with significant trauma, which the dating market reminds us, are dysgenic traits…
It would be different in a saturated market, where they might want to try to keep people on the site, but that's not the case here.
they have plenty of incentive to get you some dates, after that what are they gonna do?
It’s not that surprising when you think of selection effects. Suppose you have a sack full of marbles. Half of the marbles are pink and the other half are random assorted colours. Now reach into the sack and pull out two marbles. If they match then they get married and you set them aside, otherwise return them to the sack.
It’s easy to see that it won’t take very long until hardly any pink marbles remain. After that it’s going to be a total crapshoot to pull out a pair of matching marbles. Maybe some more pink ones get added at a later date but they’ll match and get removed.
The fundamental problem with dating sites cannot be solved by any business model: marriageable people (or otherwise people who can form and maintain a longterm relationship) are removed from the pool of potential dates. What’s left are all those who can’t or won’t form relationships. These “misfits” (for lack of a better term) tend to get concentrated in the pool over time. Perhaps it even gets so bad that marriageable people give up and just avoid dating sites.
Well, it can be solved but not by a dating site (evidence: this was a solved problem in the past). But it'd have to be very radical compared to modern dating. Arguably the branding couldn't be as a dating site, but as a stable community where people don't get removed over time so the concentration of non-pink marbles never rises.
That is something like the old model that church communities would have used. The marriageable ones pair off, but they are still in the community of people talking to each other. New marriageable people entered the community, didn't feel overwhelmed or different and eventually pair with other new entrants. The business model has to be that drawing a pair isn't ever expected to result in marriage and is fun by itself but serious dates might happen. Then the system would be viable.
Marriage rate and divorce rate have plummeted since 1940.
Probably not much to do with electronic media there. A lot more likely that financial and social pressures are squeezing what were previously considered cultural imperatives. ie - church, marriage, home ownership, etc.
Fewer teen marriages, shotgun weddings, ect.
There were always a lot of financial imperatives to wed.
The point is that now the financial imperative is not to wed. ("Girlfriend get serious! Why marry some loser who can't even buy a house?" or "Bro what? Do you know what will happen if you get divorced?")
The financial imperative is not to go to church. Working on Sunday has become the norm as people are regularly expected to be available on the weekends. This is especially true in the startup or tech space. And don't even get me started on how workers in the services sector, who would in any other era be the most likely to attend church, get so few weekends free between their multiple jobs, that church is now an afterthought for them.
The financial imperative is not to purchase a home. ("Bro! You don't have that kind of money! And what if you have to move for your job?")
As if discussions and examples using imaginary characters are somehow 'lowly', and can't be used as a fair commentary of society.
In comparison, Plato's works often feature dialogues where characters, including Socrates, engage in arguments, which present various perspectives on philosophical issues through fictionalized conversations. That style of writing and the use of imaginary characters in argumentative discourse is actually hallmark of Plato's work.
The OP's style of writing (who you responded to) is therefore not out of the ordinary; just because you disagree with his or her "perceptions of the world" doesn't mean you should put it down as unworthy of reply for using "imaginary characters".
I think that form of communication is indicative of poor mental function and inability to communicate. The world would be better off if everyone simply refuses to engage with it and ridiculed it instead of validating it with engagement.
An anecdote is not an argument, and an imaginary one is even worse.
We are living the most affluent lives ever known to mankind, even so-called low income people. We all have more money than we know what to do with, let alone more money than our forefathers.
Rather, I think the drop in marriage (and by extension divorce) has to do with increasing individualism and jade-ism.
The more humanity (namely the west) advances, the more it is drilled in that all men are created equal with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. People are increasingly more concerned with living their lives the way they want to the exclusion of spouses and children if such things are not what makes them happy.
Combine that with the brutal realities of life, because life is fucking hard at the best of times (no matter how rich you are), and the media constantly sensationalizing on everyones' fears and anger aren't helping matters either.
Also as an aside and anecdata: I'm in my mid-30s now, not married, never married, and never intend to marry because I do not find it appealing at all. I can more than afford to marry, but I am far too busy with other matters more important to me and I frankly find marriage to be nothing short of a human rights violation anyway.
Just curious, but how could marriage be a rights violation?
Marriage is many things, but chief among them is that marriage is an inevitable compromise of each others' liberties and therein lies the violation. Who am I to compromise my would-be wife's unalienable right to liberty? Who is my would-be wife to compromise my unalienable right to liberty? This is absolutely irreconcilable and thus I consider marriage to be a violation of human rights.
If we also were to have children, I/we would also be imposing my/our will upon them. I/we would be violating our childrens' unalienable right to liberty and potentially pursuit of happiness. I cannot accept that.
I am also of the position that if I were to get a divorce for any reason, I must question why I got married in the first place. Marriage is not a thing that can nor should be taken lightly; divorce is an out, but I consider the entire premise of marriage is that it is a permanent thing until death do us part.
As such, if we end up in an unhappy marriage (eg: constant bickering over the kitchen or finances) then this is also a violation of our respective unalienable rights to pursuit of happiness and we both wasted significant amounts of our limited time that each of us have in this world.
Therefore, along with other personal convictions, I find no appeal in marriage and have no intentions of ever pursuing it or finding myself in such an arrangement of my free will.
Right so you invented a notion of marriage which doesn't apply in the society you live in and then invented a problem created by that invented supposition.
This all sounds very normal.
Marriage is clearly very different from and more significant than simple friendship or other mundane relationship arrangement, and everyone's reasoning as to why will vary depending upon their religious and/or cultural upbringing and values.
Personally, as I stated earlier, I consider marriage to be some kind of permanent-ish arrangement (and especially if children become involved). There is an artificial out (divorce), but as far as I'm concerned it isn't something that should be used with wanton abandon. Thus, I place a lot of weight on why I would marry in the first place; if I am going to divorce, I should not have married in the first place.
I am deliberately violating the "Do not let perfect be the enemy of good." rule precisely because I demand a would-be marriage to be perfect given how many human rights I would flagrantly violate. I know I am never going to marry with such prerequisites and I desire that, because otherwise I cannot live with myself.
If you have any worthwhile arguments to the contrary to bring to the table I am quite happy to hear them. My conclusions thus far are the result of many years of deep and thorough deliberation, but I am also aware that it is far from infallible.
Marriage is an economic and logistical framework for the raising of children.
Any society that doesn’t come up with a viable way to raise children ceases to exist almost immediately.
So that’s why.
Are you saying that they can (or should?!) be violated?
Why?
Say it's the 18 century with slavery is common. The slave owners are depriving the slaves of liberty and happiness. But the deprivation of the slaves liberty brings the owners happiness.
If you cannot persuade the owners to stop depriving slaves of liberty, then there two options remain.
One, you respect the owners right to happiness. But at the expense of the slave's liberty.
Two, you use force to stop the owners from violating the slaves rights. But in doing so you violate the owners right to happiness.
What's the answer then here if there no options that do not harm someone's unalienable rights?
To use your example, the slave owner's right to pursuit of happiness ends where the slaves' rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness begin. A would-be slave owner cannot and should not violate another man's (a would-be slave's) right to liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Going back to the subject of marriage, my right to liberty ends where my would-be wife's right to liberty begins and vice versa. Marriage is inevitably a compromise of both our rights to liberty. Thus, I find marriage a violation of human rights.
Except you've chosen to violate the owners right to happiness by attempting to place limitations on the rights that were so called inalienable. What you think the limit should be and what the slave owner thinks the limit should be differ.
Same right, but in this case brought into conflict by disagreement of interpretations.
Second, what happens when the other side refuses to stop because he believes that your interpretation is wrong? What do you do then?
Governments are also tasked with guaranteeing those rights, and those who violate another's rights are deprived of their rights as mandated by laws.
For example, a murderer (violator of another's right to life) is imprisoned (deprived of his right to liberty) and possibly even executed (deprived of his right to life).
Even today. SCOTUS overturning Roe vs Wade and allowing States to prohibit abortions. A difference because of a disagreement on whether or not a human embryo is entitled to be treated as a full human being with all the same rights and responsibilities.
Hence the nuance. You can look at the same document that says these rights, but how they are achieved and what limits there are can differ due to differences in opinion.
What? The only way to avoid mass human rights violations is the extinction of the human race in one generation?
Is that actually true? I read something recently (in an recent article in a major publication about how online dating sucks and people are getting tired of it), that the proportion is much lower. Like people put all this money and effort into dating apps, but must successful relationships still form outside of them.
- in 1940, the top 3 were: met through family, met through friends, met in primary school. In that order, but pretty much equal
- From 1940-1980, two of those three (family, primary school) trended sharply downward, as did "met in church", while these trended upward: met through friends, met in bar or restaurant, met as or through coworkers, met in college. "met through friends" was by far the most common circa 1980
- starting in 1995 "met online" sees a sharp rise, and by 2010 it has overtaken them all.
The only other category that was still on the rise after 2010 was "met in a bar or restaurant". Is that really increasingly common? I have a strange feeling that some of those are just people too embarassed to say they met online...
Anyway, my point is there was (perhaps unsurprisingly) already a big shift going on 1940-1980, namely that the immediate family, church, childhood friends became less dominant in people's lives and friends, work, commercially-facilitated interactions (bars and restaurants) became more central. Did we learn anything from that adjustment? Were people in the 80's and 90's talking ad worrying about this the way we're talking today about the way social interactions are replacing the "old" ones?
(also, the values for "met online" on that graph seem to be small but non-zero in the 1980s! I'd like to hear the stories of some of those couples...)
IIRC Jason Scott's BBS documentary mentions this a bit. There's a couple that shows up a number of times that met on a BBS.
Probably right. I don't really get the stigma, but I've known a few people personally who told the same lie and found later it was online. One in particular had a huge elaborate story about their bar meeting. His wife told me later one day he basically selected her from a website.
So like most questions, probably worth taking self reporting with a giant dose of salt.
Rewatch wargames and note how insane the kids skills are, and how this acts as something which makes the MC more interesting to the fairer sex. Compare this to today, where busting a command line out in public is more likely to get you arrested by some idiot dogooder thinking you’re hacking the airplane instead of acting as some kind of evidence that you’re intelligent and thus possibly good partner.
Meanwhile go to the third world where life is hard and stereotypical “jocks” or “bullies” are the poor, downtrodden of society. Often these societies love nerds and cerebral people, and physical prowess isn’t valued as much here.
John Hughes is the father of the modern western incel and all related phenomenons.
When an older, morbidly obese person is with a much more attractive and younger foreign person, you can work out most of the details in your head. Is it not more embarrassing to make up some Top Gun-esque story? I don't know.
I met my first wife in person, second on Facebook(8ish years and going). I feel zero shame in the meeting place, more shame for having married the first. So yes, personally, I don't understand the stigma.
this one, about two people having met online, was written in 1879 (not a typo):
The subjective answer to this question might be at least part of this statistic.
Also you may be underestimating the number of people who pair up as part of nightlife outings. Based on my many many outings in cities around the world in recent years it does seem at a glance that people are still engaged in the practice.
I don't think it may be counted as "we met online", and specifically I never had any meaningful relationships via dating sites/apps.
In 1940, over 50% met via friends or family. About 36% met at school.
In 2021, about 20% met via friends or family. About 10% met at school. Over 50% met online. So the majority of US couples are now meeting via profit-maximizing corporations. He has a 2019 paper on this (and it has only increased since that paper).