TBH, I don't really think it has much to do with who owns them. The reason people are dissatisfied has to do with the fundamental experience of using an app to find love in the first place. Apologies for not having a link, but there has been a good amount of research that shows that the rise of apps and the internet has made it much less likely for people to date outside of their "attractiveness level". That is, previously, it was quite common for people to become friends as part of a mutual friend group, and after that happens your looks actually start to be less important. Someone who gets to know you may find you physically more attractive because they actually find your personality engaging.
With apps, though, there is plenty of data (the OkCupid blog has tons of great posts about this) that attractiveness is what counts far and away the most. And that's not surprising given the modality of how apps work, and I don't really see that changing.
I think people are generally unhappy with online data because it has a tendency to commoditize an interaction, and that's very unfortunate IMO.
In Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038702/ ), one aspect of male life the author explores is wooing and dating.
Her initial expectation is that, with her inside understanding of female thinking, she will have an easy time courting. But she finds that in person, many women perceive and are uncomfortable with her lack of masculinity. Relationships usually fail quickly once they reach the point of in-person contact.
But there's a major exception to this rule: she also found that women usually required an extended period of online correspondence before agreeing to meet face-to-face. And during this period, her initial expectation was completely correct -- women appeared to judge the man according to how much they liked his writing, and what they were looking for was feminine, not masculine, writing. She experienced unusual success in getting to the first date in the first place.
We can make a small interpretive leap to say that this suggests women are actually looking for the wrong things when they use online dating apps, proactively selecting men they are unlikely to be attracted to in person.
It seems shockingly unethical for Norah Vincent to deceive those other women just to gather material for her book. If a real sociologist proposed to do such an experiment with human subjects I can't imagine that an Institutional Review Board would ever allow it.
In the author's opinion, what men are looking for in online dating apps is to dispense with the app:
> For a little contrast, I went on a few dates with men as a woman during the course of my time as Ned. The men I met on the internet, and then subsequently in person, didn't require this epistolary preamble, nor did they offer it. They were eager to meet as soon as possible, usually, I found, because they wanted to see what I looked like. Their feelings or fantasies would be based on that far more than, or perhaps to the exclusion of, anything I might write to them.
Say what you will about this attitude, I wouldn't say that the men are looking for something different online than they are in person. Rather, they think online interaction is getting in the way of what they want, and they do their best to avoid it.
> We can make a small interpretive leap to say that this suggests women are actually looking for the wrong things when they use online dating apps, proactively selecting men they are unlikely to be attracted to in person.
This is the most interesting information from this thread so far. Thanks for the idea.
Is it not possible that people are actually happier "dating within their attractiveness level?" It certainly seems like that might be the case, if (as you say) people do tend to do that when they find an app that enables doing that.
With apps, though, there is plenty of data (the OkCupid blog has tons of great posts about this) that attractiveness is what counts far and away the most. And that's not surprising given the modality of how apps work, and I don't really see that changing.
I think people are generally unhappy with online data because it has a tendency to commoditize an interaction, and that's very unfortunate IMO.