this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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I’ve been curious if a government-run dating app could do better - if its goal is to achieve genuine engagement, not cycles of frustration that boost subscription rates.
This is one of many subjects where capitalist concern ruins the product (and that’s not even something I say as often as others on Lenny)
Honestly, 90% of the need for dating apps would vanish if people had more free time away from work and well-kept public spaces for entertainment that didn't expect you to purchase anything.
So rather than a government-run dating app, how about a government-sanctioned 4 day work week and well kept public parks?
Yet again, low-density exclusionary zoning causing car-dependency (which is why the "third spaces" you're talking about have all-but disappeared) is revealed as the root cause of almost every problem we have.
I don’t know if I buy that. I think people simply like hiding behind a screen for many interactions these days - including dating.
Not that Im against your idea but maybe just the 90% part seems inflated.
Perhaps, but we would need to put the idea in practice to determine what's the cause/effect relationship here.
Are people more addicted to their screens because the real world became hostile, or is the real world becoming hostile because people are glued to their screens?
I'd bet on the first option, but I could be wrong.
Real relationships require a vulnerability that dating apps can not provide
I love my screen time but if there was free ping pong somewhere outside or something I'd go there a lot. Same for rock climbing, board game spaces... I'd get out for a lot. Screen time is a cheap substitute for this real stuff.
But who makes the profit in your silly goose scenario? Somebody has to be making money or it's a terrible idea!
This is what we call long-term investment a taxman wins once you have kids
I run a social club for gay men, and we've talked about coming up with an app that's run by a non-profit, with social workers on the board, that's designed to actually connect people, not keep them glued to the app. Friendship, dates, activity partners, whatever.
I don't know why no one has come up with the non-profit model here but if I can get enough steam, we're doing it.
But even non-profits need to pay for operating costs like salary and cloud fees. Where would you get the funding for that?
The app doesn't need to be free, and the revenue stream won't dry up if it actually works because people break up, and there are so many fucking people that even in a zero sum scenario it would take forever to reach saturation.
Sorry if I come off like a butthole but I'm both curious yet dubious of the idea. I feel like people probably have thought about it but they probably ran into the same problems you'll run into.
You didn't quite answer my question. Where are you getting revenue? Eg. Subscription, one-time fees for X, grants, investments, etc?
Duallingo started like a non-profit but even their revenue with its massive userbase couldn't cover their expenses so they had to compromise hard to keep the lights on. The same happened to Coffee Meets Bagel. Hinge started with the same premise of "this app is meant to be deleted" but they also had to compromise and eventually sold to Match Group.
Also, I feel like gay men are a unique demographic that has higher that average engagement so Grindr is probably in a uniquely advantaged position to resist enshitification.
I guess I'm just saying it's probably in practice a cost center like city infrastructure or schools or research, so it might only work without heavy compromises if it's also funded by taxes.
Where are we getting the funds for Lemmy and its instances?
Donations and many self hosted volunteers, helped by the unique nature of the fediverse architecture also distributing burdens, fewer users, and lower computation/storage/availability requirements (compared to a more centralized service like a dating app).
It’s almost as if men are a little bit hornier than women…
That's an outdated, lazy, and inaccurate generalization.
Women are just as horny as men but straight women experience higher risks engaging in dating than gay men experience resulting in more caution and selectivity engagement.
Straight women who are able to have as much sex as they want tend to be those who are in stable, long-term relationships. The bottleneck is safety as a hard requirement for sex.
I mean, maybe we need to define horny, this may be a semantics issue,
But no, you’re very wrong. In general men are way more horny, but we may be looking for different things to solve the horniness issue…
Men's sex drive is not only consistently higher than women's, but it is more consistent over time and more consistent across individuals as well
I feel like you haven't provided any reasoning and evidence to support your opinion besides, "This is what I see from my perspective so that must be true at large."
It seems to me that you're implicitly defining horniess with a narrow interpretation of sex drive: how often people think about sex, which men very well may. To that I go back to my original point that using that to make claims is an outdated, overly simplistic, and lazy generalization. It's one that isn't very insightful and one that offers little utility.
Yea we can maybe try to define some of the words etc, I understand what you’re saying…
Gay couples have more sex than hetero couples who have more sex than lesbian couples
Men think about sex more, men masturbate more, men visit prostitutes more, men look at more porn,
How are we going to define horny?
I do understand that women throughout history have had their sexuality policed, and that women do in general care more about relationships and the emotional intimacy before they can fully enjoy sex, etc… but still, men are way hornier…
All of these statements are general for the group of men and women, not specific to any individual, obviously there are specific women who are more horny than specific men
I also don’t think it’s a bad thing if it is in fact true that men are hornier, it’s just part of being human… there are natural differences between men and women and that’s okay! 😊
You said capitalism and summoned your resident anticapitalist. How can I be of assistance, comrade. :D
Looking for an anticapitalist on lemmy is like looking for a lesbian at a Teagan and Sara concert. It's not everybody, but it's not a difficult search
meh, I dont think thats accurate. I would say "opportunist" is a better fit. Anticapitalists understand how profit extractions works and have a very different view on society. Mostly one that does not work on .world because of the capitalist propaganda machine running in the west.
National Lampoon had an article once called 'Girls of the Soviet Block'. When you said government run dating app, it made me think how hilarious that turned out.
Might not be a great idea, tbh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn
This isn't what was suggested here at all.
That's how it'll end up though.
Although with all the Nazism going on in Silicon Valley, there's a good chance that's what they've been attempting all along.
"App" and "genuine engagement" are 2 things that don't go together.
I can't wait for TRUMPDate. Make America Date Again. Can't go wrong.
Someone tried this with a dating app for right-wingers only called "The Right Stuff", which has faced significant criticism for lacking female users.
Enter the colour of your skin:
Whoops, no matches for you!
yes, and women will be required to use it and have babies with the incels on it.
Its that or prison, ladies!
But the date is August 2, 1934
I would prefer something defederated over government owned.