The online dating market

Résumé du document

Dating is a form of human courtship consisting of social activities done by two persons with the aim of each assessing the other's suitability as a partner in an intimate relationship or as a spouse. It is a specialized meeting system where the objective of the meeting, be it live or phone or chat based, is to go on a live date with someone, with usually romantic implications. The rapid march of technology has changed every aspect of our lives in the last couple of decades, relationship and dating are no different. Nowadays people use technology to plan dating, be it mobile phone or internet. Recently, "couple-dating" and "friend-dating" systems have also become popular, especially among those who met on dating systems and enjoy the interactions, but have settled down with mates.

The history of dating is as interesting as the history of technologies that support dating system. Live dating systems or methods are usually not considered as separate from the matchmaking process, which often employs games, rules and rituals in many cultures.
A notable and recent live dating system that does not seem to have arisen in traditional matchmaking is speed dating, which relies to some degree on the transportation and communication facilities of a modern society, and reflects its accelerated pace of life.

These live dating systems do not typically impose a great deal of structure on the actual interaction between the individuals considering dating.
This paper focuses on the Internet dating system.

Extraits

[...] They offer to provide a service, but they are also looking for the same service on exchange. In fact, the members of the dating sites need a partner to produce this service, namely a relationship. The member seeks a relationship, from various kinds, and can use the matching monitors from the dating site to find a “perfect” match. He/she can also randomly look at the member's profiles. Eventually, it is possible for him/her to contact other members, either by a personal (personally written) mail, or just by an automatic mail, basically saying, saw your profile and I am interested in you. [...]

[...] To a certain extent, we can say that this market is primitive. Primitive because of the basic good/service that is traded on it. Primitive in the sense of exchange, basically barter. Primitive in its almost complete absence of regulation. Primitive in its savage competition. Nevertheless, it seems that this market will grow in the future, in par with the growth of technology. [i]UENTER HITSCH; Ali Hortacsu, and Dan Ariely, What makes you click? An Empirical Analysis of Online Dating Spencer Hill, date like an economist, Yale Economic review [iii] Douma, Sytse and Hein Schreuder, Economic approaches to Organizations, London, chapter 4 on information. [...]

[...] In fact, we should better call it a service, than a product, as it is the result of an action requiring two persons. The market itself is specific. Firstly, this market is radically volatile; in the sense that transactions can be multilateral and people know it for sure. They may think to be engaged in a unilateral transaction, while the other partner is negotiating with several others. Furthermore, the particularity of this market comes from the marginal role of money. Apart from transaction costs (the monthly subscription to the dating site), money is not involved. [...]

[...] Perhaps not surprisingly, economists turn out to be better matchmakers than dates. Suppose some equal number of men and women can rank the members of the opposite sex in terms of their romantic desirability. In an article published in 1962 under the title “College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage,”[v] former University of California at Berkeley Economics and Mathematics Professor David Gale and former Professor of Mathematics at University of California at Los Angeles Lloyd solve this problem, by proving the existence of at least one divorce-proof equilibrium. [...]

[...] But, the situation is less secure than in the ‘real' life. Risk plays a huge role in this market. Indeed, when asking someone out in the ‘real' life, you don't face the danger of coming up against fierce competition from 20 other pretenders asking the same question within the day, hour, or even minute. The main ACTORS and their INTERESTS In this very particular market, the prominent player is the seller/buyer. Each member of a dating site is a seller and a buyer at the same time. [...]