It's tempting to think of the problems of a dating market as a matching problem because men and women are almost equal in numbers so we just have to match them all up. A clearing problem occurs in markets, (even markets with ~equal supply and demand) when the reserve price of the transaction is not met. For example, the reason I don't own a Ferrari isn't because there isn't 1 Ferrari out there for sale, it's because I don't have enough cash to clear the transaction. Building a more powerful car sales website won't fix this problem. The reserve price is not met.

The dating market is similarly full of people who would like to clear transactions (economist speak for form a relationship), yet cannot because they do not meet the reserve price of those they want to date.

I hope my Ferrari analogy helps to illustrate the core concept, but you have realize that dating markets are even tougher than car markets, because dating is a barter market. For a transaction to clear, there needs to be a double coincidence of wants -- you can't simply use a medium of exchange like dollars to cut the transaction in half. Imagine if to buy a Ferrari you had to find a seller who also happened to need $350k worth of Linux sysadmin work done.

I think they meant post-match personal incompatibilities exist that can't be accounted for in even the most thorough profile

GPT

“A clearing problem” usually means a problem with settling or completing a transaction.

For example:

In banking/finance, “clearing” is the process of verifying and settling payments between banks. A clearing problem could mean a payment is delayed, rejected, or hasn’t been properly matched.

In markets, it can mean buyers and sellers aren’t being matched at the expected price/quantity.

More generally, it can mean something is preventing an obligation or transaction from being finalized.

They do not want to.

More specifically, they would rather be single than pair with any of the options that are realistically available to them. Hence, the market fails to clear.

too kiasu

This is an extremely common sentiment I see online - that there is some conspiracy to keep people single to reduce subscription churn. I have run two dating apps (my own apps, not working for a company), and what I found through trial and error was that no matter how many levers you pull and tweaks you make, a lot of it is simply user-behavior problems, not a tech or product design problem. There is no reliable way for a dating app to only serve users non-committal matches for example. The reason someone's matches aren't committal is because they don't want to commit.

The thought experiment I usually pose is to ask what you think a free, open source, and community supported dating app would change. The answer is "not much".

Imagine you are the proposer. You will start at the top of your list and work your way down only if rejected. So you are guaranteed to the best you could possibly do.

Imagine A ranks X,Y,Z in that order B ranks Y,X,Z in that order C ranks X,Y,Z

X, Y, Z rank A,B,C in that order.

A will propose to X and match. B will propose to Y and match. C will propose to X and get rejected. C will propose to Y and get rejected. C will propose to Z and match.

Y will never get a proposal from A. Z will never get a proposal from A or B.

Edit: I think I fixed it.

You have to accept the best offer you get, if there's someone that you would like, you only match with them if all their better options are exhausted.

It's also known as being one of the very few first-world countries actually without basic freedoms, like free speech, freedom of the press, etc.

It's basically a benevolent dictatorship due to one party being in charge for the last 67 years.

the kind of issues that Singapore has been fairly effective at, getting people to speak the same tongue or not spitting on the street, what you could put into a bucket of 'public discipline' measures I think is over-romanticized.

The country has been effective at it but so was Prussia or England. Singapore has increasingly complex social issues you aren't going to solve with a cane, and government organized marriage likely will go as well as government cheese

Makes little sense.

China is a cultural and diaspora behemoth. Completely apples to oranges comparison.

What about countries similar to Singapore's size and wealth? An interesting thing to look at: how many US electeds are Singapore, Israel, Hong Kong or Taiwan 1st-generation heritage or born? I like this number because you cannot fake it (unlike so many things, like statistics reported by countries that are not free), you cannot buy an election or run a PR campaign to pretend you had a successful election, and it measures a real notion of power (something the CCP aspires to have): Singapore 0, China 9, Taiwan 11, Hong Kong 4, Israel 7.

Anyway I don't really buy into this line of thinking but it is interesting to me to look at a place that isn't really free, like Singapore, and figure out how it affects me.

Think more platonic hanging out. Hiking, game night, grabbing a drink.

> Do ALL the apps suck, or are you maybe not appealing enough for being picked for casual hookups by the users on the app?

Dunno, @beeforpork sounds hawt

The app has an incentive to suck unless you pay

It's about prioritizing candidates for the costly initial audition, and breaking symmetry for the introduction, something particularly useful for people who can't just approach other at random in a social setting.

Meetup got enshittified years ago already, and the changes drove away the small communities that once made up so much of the site; the only groups which prosper on it now are mainly large for-profit ventures.

In places where there is a healthy ecosystem of casual, non-rapacious meetups, that is overwhelmingly organized via Facebook, not Meetup.

>nothing that any country is trying is working.

Because most countries aren't actually trying anything nor can the government do much in that regard when the issues are cultural and emotional.

The low-birthrate couples who can't/don't want kids aren't suddenly gonna want them if you give them 3 months of paid maternity leave and a monthly stipend or other such welfare perks.

And those who do have kids because of government welfare perks, were having kids anyway, they're now incentivized to have even more.

Japan is doing it well

Crash the economy and reduce people's purchasing power

Make them poor, and the birth rate will rise (Japan birth rate is rising) =)

Bigger HDBs

Male hypergamy and polygyny has been practiced by many cultures historically. They had many problems, but low birth rates wasn’t among them. I don’t think dating apps are a sufficient causal explanation alone for low birth rates