This is just a thought I had that I wanted to bounce off people who know more about ActivityPub/the fediverse— would it be feasible (and would it make sense) to build an open-source, ActivityPub-compatible dating app as an alternative to Tinder/Bumble/etc.? And if so, what could that look like? Obviously the small userbase would be an issue, but I feel like there’s enough frustration with the mainstream apps that there’d be at least some migration if a good decentralized & non-commercial option existed. I know I’d use it. What do y’all think?
One big problem is that a fediverse dating app would be honest and most are scummy and fraudulent.
Fake profiles, fake messages, it looks like the place to be.
if don’t know why it would be more specifically honest than other apps. that’s really only defined by the user base, and their behaviour is likely to be shaped by what gets results. which, for better or, more likely, worse, seems to be that type of fake profile shit.
with luck there’s be fewer bots, though. I don’t think I got more than one single match with a real person while I was on tinder (I’m in nz, though, so pulsation density is definitely a factor there)
My argument about why would be more honest than other apps is that it would be distributed and self-hosted. Most dating apps are trying to eventually monetize you. It isn’t that the users are more or less honest, is that the platform for themselves are less honest because they need to make you feel like it’s worthwhile popping money on their dating website. Moreover, a self-hosted solution doesn’t need to impress investors by having 12 billion users.
Even if you ditch the monetization and manage to find a way to keep out third party bots (who will still want to show up and part lonely men from their money), I promise there are a lot of scummy legitimate users of dating sites. Men have to wade through a thousand bots, women have to wade through a thousand jerks who ignore all their preferences and boundaries.
As a woman, my biggest problem isn’t the terrible monetization schemes of the dating sites and it’s not the bots because the bots don’t waste their time on me. It’s the users themselves. Many people put fake ages, so you’ll try to date someone your own age and get propositioned by lots of people who are of an entirely different generation than you. All interactions are private which means there’s no community policing. Yeah, I don’t like talking intimately in front of a public audience either, but if a guy is too clingy and persistent with a woman in a room full of people, her body language will show her distress and other people sometimes step in and tell him to back off and give her a break and he might even get kicked out if he is annoying enough. On dating sites the guys with no regards for boundaries can send a thousand vulgar unsolicited messages with no repercussions. The good, respectful men and their messages get drowned out by the flood of disrespect. The fediverse can’t fix that problem.
I am a shy introvert and large gatherings aren’t really my thing, but online dating is a total bust for me. I found my first boyfriend through AOL in the 90s and have given online dating many tries because I am so dang shy in person and find it easier to write my thoughts than speak them, but the cost/benefit ratio just hasn’t panned out.