More Dating Apps
I just love coming up with dating app ideas; my previous batch here.
I'm Worth It
Classic swipe-based dating app, BUT you pay per swipe and the cost goes up by the number of un-responded messages the person already has in their inbox. So you're incentivized to swipe and message people who AREN'T already sitting on 1000 unread matches.
(This could be a literal pay-per-swipe, i.e. each swipe has a cost and when you see someone's profile you also see "$2.31 to swipe right on this person". But I think non-economists would find this offputting, so it wouldn't fly; you can achieve the same by making people pay $30 per month to get a certain number of Points, and then matching costs 1/2/3 points per match depending on how full their inbox is).
Our Little Secret
Ok, here's how it goes: suppose you're secretly into something mildly embarrassing, like reading ATVBT. Maybe you're not even embarrassed about it!, but still you don't need every stranger on a dating app knowing about your, ahem, predilection. You want to meet other people who share this niche interest, but currently the only way to do that is to have it loud and proud on your profile, and/or date a bunch of random people and wait to see if any of them are into this thing. Inefficient!
What would be great is if dating apps let you set a secret "flag" with the niche thing you're into, and then preferentially match you with other people who have the same flag. It wouldn't be deterministic, so you always have plausible deniability, it's just that you know that when the app tells you "we think you'll like THIS person", there's a reasonable chance that this is a secret signal: here is one of the few other sickos who read this stupid newsletter.
You can then do an exciting flirtatious dance around each other as you slowly figure out whether this is the case: it's funny we're meeting on a dating app, you say; I was just reading a blogpost with weird ideas for dating apps, as you scan their face for that sweet, guilty look of recognition.
If it turns out the person sucks in other ways, you can always feign innocence. "A blogpost? Nobody reads those any more." And then just swipe to the next.
If you run a dating app and would like to pay me to work on it, please email me at uri@atvbt.com. I am extremely serious, I missed a fork in the road ten years back to work on dating apps and have regretted it ever since.