Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Let's uproot the dating market with an open-source and open protocols app.


 

The way I see it, there are multiple problems with dating apps:

 

1.  The chicken-and-egg problem of dating apps: Why would I sign up for this app? It looks empty, it doesn’t have enough users in my area. If everyone feels this way, no-one will start signing up. 

2.  Another concern with dating apps is that it’s mostly men that make an account on these apps. 

3.  Maybe women on these platforms feel easily attacked or threatened by too much attention? Some men apparently are misogynous. 

 

Who will build a NOSTR based dating app that addresses these difficulties?

 

Features should include:

 

1.       Easily on-board: easily create a #nostr account. A user doesn't need to know the protocol is nostr though, this is only a technicality that makes it straightforward to build this app quickly.  

2.       Many specific filtering options, build in a way that doesn’t damage your privacy. I want to select a person based on location and religion, for example, without having the whole world being able to read my location and religion on my open access #nostr profile. This is a tough one to crack, I think. 

3.       We only want serious people, so fidelity bods should be an option. Or maybe simply paying for a "nostr-dating.com"relay is all we need. Perhaps $5 a week, for example? 

4.       Furthermore, when mistreated, I, as a male or female, should be able to downvote another user. After a certain threshold of downvotes, they become visible and other users can choose to preemptively block or ignore the misbehaving user. These votes should be confidential and not be traceable back to a specific user. 

5.       #nostr by default has no way to save photos or videos. But for prospects to see each other, those are essential. Possibly, said subscription to a “dating-relay” that only relays messages that contain #singleandreadytomingle should also provide temporary hosting services. 

6.       Added bonus: once you do find someone and stop paying the relay the weekly fee, it deletes all your messages and photos and videos.

7.       Private DMs are indispensable as well.

 

What else am I missing?

 

Let’s uproot the damaging multi-billion dollar “dating app market” with open-source and open protocol tools ✌️✊

 

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