https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-dating-odds-economy-apps-tinder-math/606982/

I’m new to this sub so apologies if this has been already discussed. I think this topic is one that is very well suited for this group.

Marx talks about the commodity fetish and how capitalism inevitably commoditizes everything. This has been happening for the past five years with online dating and it’s effects on relationships. Online dating has become the most common way that couples meet, overtaking every other method, even traditional ones like mutual friends and contacts. The problem is that unlike the latter, dating sites and apps are specifically designed to maximize profit. This means that the more of its users get into long-terms relationships, the less money they make. Therefore, the business model inherently is to overwhelm women with choices to make them very picky (meaning they usually shoot for men out of their league) and men desperate, making both spend more time on the apps and spend money on their additional services.

Now, this may be a conscious policy of companies like Match Group or Bumble, etc. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if it were. But even if it’s not, they’re not the ones dictating this. In reality, you have highly advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and supercomputers making these decisions. Must focus has been put on how AI is used on social media sites, and a term has been made called “surveillance capitalism” which refers to the way these social media companies track your every activity in order to maximize your use of their products. Not much has been done to address this same process on dating apps.

The disparity for the genders on dating apps is one I’m sure everyone here knows about. Indeed, in the article linked at the top, an internal study by Hinge compared men’s and women’s status on the app to the Gini coefficient (a measure used to determine income inequality) of various nations. They found that women are in conditions comparable to first world Western European nations, while men are facing conditions similar to South Africa. (Ironic how the app that claims to be about finding relationships is anything but.)

This highlights how AI has intensified the traditional gender dynamics in dating to maximize profit. Traditionally, men chase and women choose. In pre-Internet dating, women normally had several suitors to choose from, while men were chasing after one or two. A woman would play the market so to speak, and go for the man she thought was the best pick for her. This may take some time, but it wasn’t overwhelming to her and she stayed in the relationship for some time before either marrying or breaking up. This dynamic is now on steroids. Women are overwhelmed with choices, having at least dozens of potential suitors each, while most men are hardly able to find anybody. The top-tier men are now playing the market, and sleeping around as much as they can before settling down, disappointing many women along the way. This situation means that everybody is staying on the apps because most everybody is single. Add to that the various dopamine-inducing features of each app, and they are making boat-loads of money.

While it’s easy to blame women or feminism for this dynamic (as is often done in the manosphere), in reality, it’s capitalism that is to be blamed, particularly surveillance capitalism. Biologically, the sexual dynamic has always worked under the “men chase women choose” model. However, capitalism has exploited this and intensified it by providing an “illusion of choice,” whereby a customer is presented with so many options and paradoxically they are unable to make a choice. Nevertheless, they keep looking and shopping and the capitalist keeps making money. Now this same model has come to dating and it is wrecking sexual dynamics. The number of people having sex and in relationships is declining, with men being hit much harder. In 2018, nearly a third of men were celibate, compared to about 10% of women. I would not be surprised if the numbers were much higher now. Indeed, these companies have capitalized on this pandemic and now I’m sure that the vast majority of relationships are being formed online. However, with that being said, the number of people forming relationships has declined I am sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if nearly 50% of men were celibate and probably a third of women, if not more.

This has very obvious ramifications for society. Men who are unable to form relationships are unable to form families, and they have no investment in society. Men in this state are more likely to be radicalized, and more likely to be violent. Given that social media is already promoting extremism due to its ability to get engagement, the possibility of this is much higher. Women are also no better off. They may be more likely to have relations, but they are also more likely to be fleeting and short term. This will cause mental health problems for them, as their inability to find a reliable partner and form a family is also detrimental to their psyche. Furthermore, both genders will become increasingly resentful towards the other and gender relations will continuously decline.

Advanced technology may not be the problem. The problem is that these technologies are programmed to maximize profit. We know how capitalism has destroyed societies historically, particularly the third world. Labor and class relations soured to the point of violence and revolution. These processes have been regulated in most of the West, however, and class relations have improved relative to what they were a century ago (although they are far from perfect, particularly in America). Now, capitalism is doing the same to gender relations. I fear that we are headed towards either violence or a Japan-like stagnation that will last decades. An increasing trend of far-right violence may make the latter, unfortunately, more likely. We have seen that the young men who are commuting acts of mass violence are almost always loners with no relations with women. In fact, there is the meme of “incel extremism” that even the US military is concerned about. Unless significant regulations on the data policies of tech firms are put into place, I fear this trend will only get worse.

Happy to hear your thoughts.