It feels like there are a bunch of irreconcilable issues.

I had a discussion about improving dating sites at a local dev meetup. I was told by the 30 something women in the group the only thing important is the person's face. Nothing else matters on a dating site.

Of course that's only a few data points (small meetup) but was very frustrating to hear and if true then all this is pointless. It's certainly not true for me personally though.

Random thoughts

* video: In the 80s there was video dating. You'd go into the dating service office, look through notebooks of profiles, then ask for the videos of the people you were interested in. Is that just not possible anymore? I get that people were shy of the internet before but in 2020 with Instagram and TikTok are videos not viable?

* AI video interviewer: could you make some interview system where a selection of pre-recorded videos of an interviewer asking questions asks you interview questions so you actually get a reasonable interview out of the user? (vs just having a "record button" and leaving it entirely up to the user)

* Encouraging better profiles: Similar to the AI video interviewer, how can you encourage users to create an interesting profile? I have no idea for the men but for women, making these numbers up but it feels like 30% write nothing. They just put their picture (Tinder, OkCupid, Bumble, CoffeeMeetsBagel). 65% write something so generic as to have no value like "I do yoga, like travel and eating out, dancing, and movies". I have no idea how to fix this. One is use TalkToTransformer.com to make up a random profile and tell them to fix it or else. another might be text-to-speech from the AI video bot (yes I know that's not likely to work). I also know most people or at least some large percent of women don't want to put in the time to fill out a profile. They just want to sign up and look around. Maybe their profile should stay private until they've added enough content. Maybe some deep learning could rate how unique their profile is and they stay private below some threshold or tell them it sucks and they aren't going to get any good matches unless the level it up with lots of suggestions.

* Better Interests: One service (probably patented) lets users create public interest groups. An interest group = name of group and single photo (icon). Example of groups "Raspberry PI Lover", "Fan of George Clooney", "Chocolate is the 5th food Group", "Seeking Soulmate", "Dad jokes are hilarious", "Zelda Love", "Dogs > Cats", ... The plus is a user can just select 5 to 500 of these interests which many find easier than writing a profile. So, on the user's profile a list of these icons show up. Clicking an icon also shows all the other profiles that added that interest. Most dating sites have a boring and useless set of 10 to 50 categories. The user created ones are much better at helping find people with similar interests. I suspect this feature would need serious moderation though so people don't make trolling or rude interests.

* separating services into DTF, LTR, etc...: Right now it feels like on all the major systems everyone is mixed together, both the people that just want something for tonight and the people looking for a soulmate. The mix doesn't work IMO because the DTF men disgust the LTR women and so the LTR women leave. How to fix that I have no idea. One idea is if you're on the LTR site and someone asks DTF you can flag them and get them moved to the DTF site (with enough flags and/or moderation).

* better activities: There was a service "How about we..." were your profile was just suggestions of activities "How about we go to disco bowling together". "How about we try stinky tofu"... etc. How can that be expanded? Partner with AirBnB experiences to sign people up to local event? Partner with entertainment venues for live performances? There's a service called "Dine" which was supposed to be "pick a restaurant, one of 3, from a person's profile, which then automatically sends them a message, so-and-so would like to take to you (name of restaurant), choose a time..." In my experience the site lacked any women even close to my age but it did seem like you could charge a premium and potentially partner with restaurants to try to making actually meeting in person in a safe venue as frictionless as possible.

* group activities? I know match.com had their stir.com initiative. I don't know if it went anywhere. I tried a couple of events. Too few people. Not good matches (odds of matches low). Still many people say they really only have had relationships with people they've known for a while so how do take that feedback into account?

* How to get people to pay and take it serious and still get users. Most of the dating services are free or free for women. This fills the site with non-serious people which is not actually helpful for those that actually want to meet someone. On the other hand any paywall = no users? Although I know that's not always true. The #1 site in Japan is pay only, $120-$180 a year, at least for men.