I think the first step would be creating a well funded government organization or nonprofit with a broad mandate to solve the problems of community, relationships, and the birth rate in the 21st century. Make it a proper national security issue.

Creating a neutral dating app with proper moderation (against harassment and fake/spam accounts) and without the profit incentive would be a great entry point for that organization to study relationships in general.

Replying to scarface, who has no reply button... It would help to know that profiles are not likely to be a Chinese scammer, and it would help in that the app wouldn't be actively _hiding_ profiles of people that have expressed an interest you behind a "gold-level" function. Because that's what Tinder does: it finds the short list of people that might be interested in you, and then hides them behind a pay wall, occasionally trickling one out (and dare I speculate, the one that is least likely to lead to a relationship).

If anything, Tinder is the precise opposite of a dating app.

What’s wrong with expecting you to pay for a service?

Nothing, but if your only goal is to frustrate people, maybe that's a level of 'service' you should not be offering in the first place.

And how would that help? Women are still going to filter for tall, successful fit men.

Every time the app successfully matches two people well enough that they form a long-term commitment to each other, that is a step in the right direction. When the app instead matches people adequately enough for a short-term relationship but keeps them coming back to the app for more, that aggravates the problem.

Possibly, the commercial incentives of these apps have them deliberately optimizing for short-term matches. Or it may be the case that the apps are doing as best as they can manage and the problem is simply very difficult to solve. If the former is the case, then removing or regulating the commercial incentive might help.

Do we really want the government regulating how people meet or even worse the government knowing every time you meet someone?

Personally I don't believe it would help, but I do think I understand civilitty's reason for suggesting it.

I like to stew on this a lot. The root of it all might be economic and social opportunity. If you can succeed, you can attract good partners. If you are secure, you can be a better parent. If you have good parents, you will have more opportunity.

Of course, this has little to do with dating apps.

That still doesn’t help the fact that no woman says “you know I really like short fat guys”.

As incellish as that sounds, I am 50 and I have been happily married for 13 years and before that unhappily married for four from the time I was 28-32. But my dating life mostly sucked in my 20s as a five foot 4 decently successful guy, in great shape as a part time fitness instructor, outgoing, and with a modicum of social skills.

A guy who is not financially successful and who is tall has a much better chance in the dating or at least the hookup pool than a short person who is financially successful.

Fair point, I’ve focused on “maybe you’re short, but you can still be fit, confident, great partner, etc”. However, unrealistic expectations and dating “market structure” that lets the top 10% of guys dominate the whole field can significantly undermine all that.

I think monasticism needs to make a come-back.