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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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I think the question needs to be backed up. Dating platforms are like nightclubs - getting women to sign on is the hard part. Once you get women to your club, the men come and they spend money on the women. Likewise if you could guarantee that every single woman in the world would get on and look at your iteration of Tinder, it would be a multi-billion dollar app even if you require men verify themselves by writing their username on their dicks and sending photos in before getting online.

The network effects here are huge and real, getting people onto your dating app is hard. It's the Facebook problem all over again, except this time you need to convince women to come get hit on by men. You might be able to do that with BillionaireDating.com or your new trendy SixFootAndOver app, but absent that sort of filtering that's a tough call to begin with. Starting a new dating app isn't just like opening a nightclub where you can trend some loss leaders, spend more on live music, etc, and try and burn some cash to get people coming to where you are.

Still, just like any fine drinking establishment you either need a niche or a hook (Bumble - guys can't message you weirdo shit initially, Grindr - should be obvious) that's strong enough to get people off the default option. Once you've done that you can be a local institution and coast, but initially you need to wow people and move them to your nightclub for more than one rare step in the bar crawl.

Men are already predominant on dating apps. There's no dancing on Tinder, no girls out for a night of fun that doesn't plan on meeting men but still might if they're a good-looking good dancer. Roughly 2/3s-3/4s of everyone on a dating app is a man. Fantastic if you're gay or a woman, but for single straight guys this is a difficult environment. So if you're a guy you might have a Hinge, Tinder, OkCupid, Match.com, etc, etc, account because why not? Why not try Conservadate? Why not hit up O'Malleys? Yeah, I know it's an Irish pub, but there is that one cute girl there who plays in the band there occasionally. This place sucks anyway, let's go somewhere else. We can always come back.

Why would single conservative women move to the new nightclub? They already have plenty of conservative men around them as men are more conservative than women in every age bracket. They're already in a good spot. The drinks are already free, the DJ is pumping out some great beats. And you want them to go and move over to Thiel's new weird club? Why? What do they have to gain? Men are buying them drinks, they're dancing, having fun, and your query is 'why not go to the new empty club that nobody but a bunch of weird dudes are in?

Sure, two-thirds of single women who voted didn't vote Trump. That's got to be a factor, in the sense that you've lost two-thirds of your market already. Polarization and the like are real, and anyone who demands to date solely on political factors is much more likely to end up alone, but... I think the answer isn't 'women hate conservative men', it's 'Thiel couldn't even move the conservative women over'.

Was surprised that the SixFootAndOver app does not already exist. Would seem like a workable hook.