I see your point here - and I do agree, from experience, people sometimes express a desire for a bit of reality distortion in dating (we often heard that they want the experience to feel more like 'fate' or 'chance' than overly engineered).
That said, I don't fully agree with the idea that there's a uniform concept of x/10 scale for daters and that they uniformly will balk at those below that uniform rating and therefore the only way forward is boosting those based on their global like %. And some data backs this up.
The oft-cited OkCupid Dataclysm book talks about variance (e.g. lots of people like / lots of people dislike), explaining variance is meaningfully more important to messaging and engagement than raw like %.
Additionally, on the point of weight / body type, we found that a little under half of daters (and > 50% of women interested in men) do not report body type to be a significant factor in their decision making. So it is a meaningful factor, but for about 1/2 of daters it isn't.
The point I'm trying to drive here is, while there is for sure data and intuition that points to what you're describing, there are others that point to other ways that people perceive the quality and likelihood of finding a partner on an app that may work as well, if not better, while not relying on a need to as heavily hack perception.
> Body type is a significant factor for way more than 50%. People lie on surveys because they feel guilty for being superficial.
I think you are extrapolating your own view. You have no way of knowing what they feel and even for an educated guess you do not know which country/social class/occupation those users tend to be from in the app being discussed.
Revealed preferences are a thing, no matter the social class. What people self-report to want and what they actually want is rarely the same, especially in fields with high social pressure.
Of course but you can't just claim that because you feel like X then everyone feels like X even if they say Y. You gotta have something to back it up. Especially if you represent a minority of users in many categories...
First, I think you're making some big assumption by implying that GP's statement is him projecting his own beliefs/attitudes, rather than being generally cynical.
Second, I think "people are superficial and attracted to people who fit conventional beauty standards" is a fair null hypothesis. That's what conventional beauty standards mean. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that people's stated preferences there are biased towards making themselves look less superficial.
> "people are superficial and attracted to people who fit conventional beauty standards" is a fair null hypothesis
Most likely is that you are extrapolating from your experience. Average here is male middle class from US or EU. A real average person lives in an Asian country on 50 USD/month trying to make it in life.
The gene wants to carry on and in this world survivability is not up to the looks unless you are already middle class in a stable rich country. Perhaps you are not being cynical enough if you think the looks is what's important for >50% of users.
>Additionally, on the point of weight / body type, we found that a little under half of daters (and > 50% of women interested in men) do not report body type to be a significant factor in their decision making. So it is a meaningful factor, but for about 1/2 of daters it isn't.
According to the previous poster, 69% of Americans are overweight (36% obese). Assuming the dating app users are representative of Americans, then well over half of those daters are, themselves, overweight. So of course many of them won't report body type to be a significant factor! They're already overweight, and their expectations in a partner are probably realistic. What's disturbing is that only about 1/2 of daters said it wasn't a meaningful factor: this means that almost 20% of daters are both overweight AND (assumedly) expect to date fit people.
That said, I don't fully agree with the idea that there's a uniform concept of x/10 scale for daters and that they uniformly will balk at those below that uniform rating and therefore the only way forward is boosting those based on their global like %. And some data backs this up.
The oft-cited OkCupid Dataclysm book talks about variance (e.g. lots of people like / lots of people dislike), explaining variance is meaningfully more important to messaging and engagement than raw like %.
Additionally, on the point of weight / body type, we found that a little under half of daters (and > 50% of women interested in men) do not report body type to be a significant factor in their decision making. So it is a meaningful factor, but for about 1/2 of daters it isn't.
The point I'm trying to drive here is, while there is for sure data and intuition that points to what you're describing, there are others that point to other ways that people perceive the quality and likelihood of finding a partner on an app that may work as well, if not better, while not relying on a need to as heavily hack perception.