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submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by go_birds@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

What would a FOSS dating app look like?

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[-] greenbelt@lemy.lol 2 points 1 day ago

Lol it would be spammed by bots I think. And hard to moderate. I will pity any moderator who has to moderate such a platform.

[-] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 61 points 6 days ago

I feel like it would be almost impossible for the app ti reach critical mass in any local area

[-] benagain@lemmy.ml 55 points 6 days ago

"David has requested your public key, do you accept?"

[-] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 6 days ago

How do you think Alice and Bob met?

[-] benagain@lemmy.ml 14 points 6 days ago

In an insecure love triangle with Mallory.

[-] etchinghillside@reddthat.com 35 points 6 days ago

As an experiment - try setting up a dating community on Lemmy - report back with how that goes.

Why did I automatically imagine that hot dog gif...

To be fair there is a decent amount of people here who may enjoy that though. Straight males would likely struggle here like most other dating sites.

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[-] daggermoon@lemmy.world 31 points 6 days ago

I think it would be mostly men. I like the idea of it though.

[-] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 28 points 6 days ago
[-] daggermoon@lemmy.world 20 points 6 days ago

Sounds like a viable app now that you mention that.

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[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

My wife wouldn't be thrilled..

Well, if we weren't doing it together.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

having a lot of people on it would be the thing that makes it good.

for real though, here's my formula to fix a major dating app problem:

  1. women can swipe men, but men cannot swipe women
  2. men can view and chat with women who have swiped them

now I can simply look cool, instead of trying to swipe 500 girls for an hour

no for-profit dating app will ever do this, because it means that men are not swiping 500 girls for an hour

[-] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Gay perspective:

You must have a face pic of you within the last decade first. After that, anything goes.

Ads are reduced from appearing once every 5 taps to once every time you launch the app. At most. Go away. My hands are busy. That’s why I’m here.

If you use a VPN, you never see ads, and if you route porn traffic and Tiannamen square footage you get free membership forever.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

i don't mind holding back the face reveal until after a chat and vibe check. it makes sense given how many men want to minimize the risk of being seen by coworkers, especially in more conservative societies. but i hear your perspective from people a lot also

[-] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

Maybe add a feature where if someone is chatting with >10 people, they aren't shown for swiping? I don't know exactly what the limit should be, but I feel like the apps use 'hot' profiles that attract people and make them swipe a lot that won't lead anywhere.

[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

95% of your male users would have zero swipes on the app, and then stop using it

and most of the women will swipe on 5% of the men, and also leave because those 5% of men will only respond to like 5% of the swipes they get, so 95% of them get shafted.

and this is why dating apps don't work. people don't use them logically or reasonably. dating is all about chasing hot people who won't give you the time of day and ignoring people who would actually date you because they are not as attractive as the people who ignore you.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

95% of your male users would have zero swipes on the app, and then stop using it

and most of the women will swipe on 5% of the men

so it's the same result as the current tinder system, except im not swiping 500 girls for an hour. yea, it sounds good

the app could give the guy some performance metrics. view count, swipe ratio. he can make tweaks to his profile, a/b test. it could actually be pretty interesting

[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

the tinder system doesnt' show you how 99.9% of women are rejecting you. just like the lottery, the point is the delusion that you might 'win' even though statistically, you won't ever.

if the average user saw that reality, they'd give up. they would not try to improve.

apps can't fix biological imperatives. all they do is magnify them. i'm a guy who gets matches on apps regularly... most women interpret my profile as the complete opposite of what it says. it's hilarious. but that's because people see what they want to see, they don't see what you literally tell them.

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[-] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 days ago
[-] greenbelt@lemy.lol 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

About me: Arch btw

Again and again at infinitum. After some time elitism will rise in such a forum.

[-] robber@lemmy.ml 16 points 6 days ago
[-] narwhal@mander.xyz 1 points 4 days ago

It is very simple and few people, but it does work.

[-] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

Same. I installed it on my phone but in the end, I'm still stuck with the dilemma if I go through with giving them my data/info or not. At this point, I'd have better luck just loitering around Target and asking someone out.

[-] greenbelt@lemy.lol 1 points 1 day ago

Stupid question, why is there not something like totally anonymous dating without any data shared on online platforms? My only answer: Maybe this would get abused.

[-] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Absolutely. Just look at Roblox. Not exactly a dating platform but that's already shite.

[-] robber@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago

Exactly this. Since it does not seem to be federated, you're still forced to give your data to a third party you can't choose. And this makes the open source aspect a rather marginal benefit, at least for the privacy-concerned end user. Still, I appreaciate the effort.

[-] gtr@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago

Tried it, doesn't work. Too many bugs. I can't input a location and it fails to auto-detect so I am just living in cyberspace apparently.

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[-] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 6 days ago

would be cool for meeting local foss nerds, if theres any

[-] vaionko@sopuli.xyz 8 points 6 days ago

Forget the dating part, an app to find local nerds would be awesome

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[-] LawBodilyAutonomy@lemmy.ml 11 points 6 days ago
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[-] dax@feddit.org 8 points 6 days ago

Unless you have a massive marketing budget, it's futile. Any such app, and that includes social media in general, needs a massive user base to be viable. And outside of a geeky minority, most people wouldn't care it's open source.

[-] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

The geeky minority who care that it's open source might be predisposed to liking each other, though, so the user base wouldn't need to be as big as a general-purpose dating app.

[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

it would work if it was a gay/furry specific app.

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[-] NeedyPlatter@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 days ago

Hopefully none of that "subscribe to see more matches" bs

Oh, and one of the generic message prompts is "What Linux distro do you use?"

Sorry, this feature is only available for users of Arch Linux

What it would look like is a badly themed badly optimized front end that isn't in the App store, was recently removed from the Play store, with a rape awful name like CLIT or CL Isn't Tinder or LibreMeetCute and a nonsense icon. It would rapidly become recognized as the engine used by the huge number of extremely sketchy personals sites that popped up all of a sudden that contain only virtual prostitutes. It would also be the engine that powers Truth Romance. It would have the worst Github issues page in human history.

[-] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 8 points 6 days ago

Instead of assessing compatibility I assume it would include ideological purity tests.

[-] pineapple@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago

Nah, In person for the win!

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[-] Unlearned9545@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago
[-] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 days ago

Literally just a dating app without the hidden algo that keeps people onboard and no payment. It could be federated.

[-] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 5 days ago

What would that even look like?

[-] it_depends_man@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Sure, why not.

What would it look like? Same as the others, text field for description, pictures, interests.

If it's foss, I would want to see a https://reproducible-builds.org/ or some other method of verifying the accuracy of the process. Getting no matches would be better than the fake stuff the others do.

[-] jaypatelani@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

Rather do Matrimonial Tech meet

[-] ByteMe@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

I don't think I'm into dating apps

[-] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

Allowing you to meet meet people more like yourself!

[-] vfreire85@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

My two cents on dating apps in general:

  1. I would rather have something that actually marks someone as willing to have a relationship instead of clinging to people that for some reason are not available; maybe I'm just lazy of knowing people, but on the other side it skips some hurdles and puts me on contact with someone I might have taken a long time to know, if at all;
  2. on the other side, dating apps really reward someone physically attractive or at least that uploads the best photos. I've met several people who in person are alright for me which I wouldn't swipe if I met them in an app. Also, after I actually paid a professional photographer to shoot a set of me and uploaded the pics on apps, I received more likes in a single week than during my entire life, even though nothing fundamentally changed and I'm still the same.
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this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
65 points (93.3% liked)

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