How Game Theory is improving apps that help you find someone with whom to spend time (we can’t use the common term for this because of the algorithms that govern deliverability…). Game theory is so amazing. And if you are a single millennial these days, it just got so much better. It is no secret that relationship apps, have become a cesspool. The harassment of the street simply is transferred online. Even on Tinder, when it is all about the meaningless hookup, women often get an avalanche of crass, unoriginal, and uninspired messages from the throngs of dudes that outnumber them in population ( 60% men to 40% women, according to the Economists’ 1843 Magazine) on relationship apps-sphere and the attempts. And therein lies the problem. The market is so skewed in favor (or in this case against) the women, creating a classing game theory dilemma where users acting in their (narrow) self-interest over-exploit a shared resource and therefore harm the common good. To use a dispassionate term: overfishing.

[hookup] apps have begun to adapt, and creating incentives to shift behavior. Coffee Meets Bagel is addressing the torrent of harassing cat-calls by allowing for only one match per day, essentially forcing the users to put some thought into their target partner and put some thought into what they say so as to not risk wasting their one chance. Bumble is turning the table and only allowing women – the under represented group – to make the first move. To this, we say: RIP John Nash. You truly deserved that Nobel Prize.