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Those of us over 30 definitely remember chat rooms and newsgroups, whose heyday seemed to be in the 1990's. Many people joined in droves. Messages were sent across, friendships were made, and romantic connections were formed. Of course, flame wars erupted here or there, but for the most part, these online communities were largely self-policed. Over the years, bots and spammers joined Usenet, and flooded the networks with ads for penis enlargement ads, prescription pills, and what-have-you. Criminals started leveraging chat rooms for drug trading and recruiting minors for sex, causing the providers to react by curtailing their services. As a result, normal human users got fed up with the increasing uselessness of newsgroups and chat rooms, and abandoned them.
Chat rooms are getting revived in spirit via mobile messaging apps, but they just don't have the same feel, although part of it is due to the internet coming of age. Newsgroups are kept archived by Google, and a few are getting used for software piracy, given their obscure nature, but they're effectively obsolete.
Now, consider online dating. Its roots lie is newspaper personals. Online dating sites first appeared sometime in the 1990's. (Anyone remember Yahoo Personals, or Match.com being free?) Even when it started to gain momentum, newspaper-style abbreviations still persisted, such as "SWM seeks SWF or SDF for LTR." People were lured in by the possibility of someone getting to know them as a person, rather than judging them by appearance, despite the strong stigma online dating still carried. Abbreviations faded away once people realized there is no text limit on the internet, at least until Twitter came along. A few, like "SO" and "LTR", survive to this day.
Over time, more and more people got into online dating, causing the stigma to weaken. At the same time, scammers also joined (known in today's world as "catfishes"). Many of them were escorts posing as lonely women, and criminal-minded men posing as Russian brides and Nigerian princes. In fact, JDate was almost taken over by a flood of escort ads in early 2000's. Online dating became increasingly popular later on, when virtually everybody and their brother (or sister) started getting in on it. People's choices in online dating broadened vastly, as everyone started sending or receiving messages in huge numbers.
This is what seems to be sending online dating on a downward path today. Men are getting fed up sending hundreds and hundreds of messages, even well-written ones, while getting zero replies in return. This is causing them to start sending very short "hey!" lines and/or d*ck pics out of sheer frustration with endless failure. Women, in turn, are getting fed up with receiving very short "hey!" lines and/or d*ck pics, as opposed to quality messages. Mobile dating apps caused choices to become even more numerous, making it even easier to engage in the above actions. All in all, online dating is an increasingly undesirable option for most people. Almost in a strange twist of irony, it's now virtually identical to the meat market it once provided a respite from. (*cough* Tinder! *cough*)
What's the future of online dating, I wonder? It's highly unlikely that it'll return to its 1990's roots. And I keep hearing more and more people say that they want no part of online dating anymore. I'm no different. It seems like it's only a matter of time online dating will lose popularity entirely, like chat rooms and newsgroups did before. Of course, we're still human and we'll never stop wanting desirable sex partners, so it's very possible that something will move in to replace online dating. Jury is still out on what it will be.
Thoughts?
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 12-04-2016 at 11:50 AM..
You say both that online dating has huge numbers and may collapse under it's own weight, and you and others aren't interested in online dating so it is losing popularity.
Which is it?
Realize that this is all your own perception, there are no numbers or statistics.
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I think Virtual Reality headsets will eventually become the norm and people will begin to use software where they create a 3D avatar with facial mapping tech, jump into a lifelike virtual world created for socializing, and talk using a high quality mic. And an option to click their avatar to bring up their profile and figure out more about them.
I think Virtual Reality headsets will eventually become the norm and people will begin to use software where they create a 3D avatar with facial mapping tech, jump into a lifelike virtual world created for socializing, and talk using a high quality mic. And an option to click their avatar to bring up their profile and figure out more about them.
Or an Augmented Reality app for the Hololens or similar where it shows if a person in the room (in real life) is single and looking. And an option to pull up their profile. Without them knowing.
Or an Augmented Reality app for the Hololens or similar where it shows if a person in the room (in real life) is single and looking. And an option to pull up their profile. Without them knowing.
What so in a night club for example it would show up who's single etc?
LOL!... might save time but would take the fun out of mingling and trying your luck with randoms LOL.
Today's web-based online dating will eventually be replaced by something else. If you can figure out what that is going to be, you stand to make a lot of money.
What so in a night club for example it would show up who's single etc?
LOL!... might save time but would take the fun out of mingling and trying your luck with randoms LOL.
But would appeal to a good few Im sure.
It would most DEFINITELY appeal to me, haha.
I'd know ahead of time if they're single and actually looking to date.
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LOL.
