Variable Rewards

I am off online dating apps at the moment. I read an article yesterday which reminded me why It is about how app developers (not just dating apps developers) use the insights of behavioral psychology to make their apps addictive. The chief tool is variable rewards--read the user and tease the user with the prospect of massive rewards to him keep coming back for more. When you sense his interest flagging, throw him some crumbs to keep him hooked. For instance, if your dating app user thinks the perfect hook-up or soulmate, as their preference may be, is just a swipe or two away he or she will keep coming back to your app.

One of the reasons I was annoyed with dating apps is the power of the matching algorithm, which controls who you see and who sees you. So the way it works is if you swipe right (like) on a profile, and another person does the same on your profile you match and can begin a conversation. If you match immediately after swiping right, it means that person has already liked you. If you get a match when you are not swiping, it means that person has just liked you. Or so it is meant to seem. One day, it occurred to me that that might not always be the case. The dating can choose not to match two users who have already liked each other or match them at what feels like an optimal time. For instance, match you at the time of the day when you are most likely to initiate a conversation. Why would the dating app do that? Because its goal is to hook you and turn you into a paying subscriber, which is the only way to cut out the subterfuge of the dating app. For eg, Tinder has a limit on the number of times you can swipe right. If you reach the limit you have a 12-hour timeout during which you can't swipe right. But the app will send you messages saying someone has swiped right on you and you should take a subscription to see who it is and also get an unlimited number of swipes. If you don't, my experience is you keep swiping, and keep hitting your limit without matching with anyone. I also know that you are most likely to match when your profile is new, possibly because it is shown to more people while older ones tend to get buried. You can take all the crushing suspense away by taking a subscription. Or at least that is what they claim, although I would take anything they say with a bagful of salt. To use a economics term, there is a complete asymmetry of information. The dating app has your profile, your swiping history as well as your swiping performance, and powerful algorithms to model you. It can then tailor your experience to maximize the chances that you will become a paying customer. 

These games are not so innocuous when it comes to dating apps, because however casual you are about online dating, games in matters of the heart hurt. They chisel at your self-esteem. This is not to say that everyone, or even I, would get a ton of matches if the dating apps played fair. All I am saying is that the dating apps don't have your best interests at heart. Their only interest is to turn you into a paying subscriber, so entrust your self esteem to them at your own peril. I haven't even got into the debate about whether a few photographs and a short bio (which most people don't fill out) can be a barometer of desirability. People are so much more than how they look in photographs and what they think others would like to read in their bios.