I was trying to explain federated websites to a friend and she asked if there is a federated dating app. She recently went through a break up and the apps are dreadful as I’m sure many of you know.
It’d be hard to launch a dating system on the fediverse because it the type of service that relies heavily on network effects. People want to be on the dating app with the most people. However, I think there is an opportunity because the mainstream apps are so notoriously awful, monetized, and enshitified.
It could be a community within an existing network or it could be its own website. I don’t know, I’m just putting the idea out there.
I used to make accounts on OKCupid as a 12 year old, pretending to be 43, just so I could do the matching system—I used it as a personality quiz. Still enjoy that kind of thing today. Not sure how many fake users akin to myself you would get, making a profile that harasses nobody but also is totally useless and one more thing for people looking for love to have to scroll by, for a database to store information on.
Not sure how I found out about that matching system as a 12 year old not looking for love online. I think it happened at least in part because whenever I would search the internet for personality quizzes, OKCupid often had some quiz that matched what I wanted.
One way to catch me out would have been that I never interacted with anyone. No viewing profiles besides my own, no messages sent.