There are already at least three companies in this space: RoomieMatch, Roomi, and Roomster. I wonder why nobody I know uses them, but dating apps are very popular?
It seems to me that the triangulation, trust, and transfer problems in roommate matching that go beyond what OKCupid has to deal with:
There are more than two people involved, and the difficulty of finding communal compatibility complexifies geometrically with the number of roommates.
By the same token, people moving in and out happens more frequently with larger numbers of room mates, often with short notice, making it hard to keep a stable equilibrium of preferences.
Imagine if it was easy to “date your future housemates,” perhaps by living together for a month. It’s already emotionally painful for people to deal with or inflict rejection in one-on-one dating. Imagine being the “odd man out” in this situation. That sounds like a recipe for really uncomfortable social dynamics.
People who rent because they can’t afford their own place probably can’t afford a high-touch service. People who have more money could buy their own place and interview enough room mates to make sure everyone is a good fit with them personally.
Land lords often influence or even entirely control the process of finding new room mates. There are also laws around evictions that make it very difficult to kick somebody out if its not working for others, whereas there are no legal barriers to breaking up with someone you’re dating if there’s no marriage and no kids.
There’s a much higher effort and commitment barrier required to move than to go on a date.
This is speculative, but OKCupid’s success may stem from capitalizing on a cultural institution that makes romantic love feel of vast importance. By contrast, finding an ideal group of room mates doesn’t have the same cultural importance: we still dream of having our own place by ourselves or with our own biological family. To have comparable success, such a service would need to create a new dream. Even if that’s your dream, is it the dream of your housemates?
Similarly, the service OKCupid provides may be less in matching people with compatible characteristics, and more in identifying an abundance of single people and getting them hyped to go on a date. The purpose of the “matching” is to trick you into building up anticipation, not to ensure a really good fit (after all, if it did that too well, people wouldn’t come back for more!). Instinct, hormones, and love do most of the work of making people stick together in the end.
When people do try and start intentional group houses, they’re often organized around a shared social movement, which already have word-of-mouth and social media channels where people can learn about these opportunities for free.
I think a company would do better to work on solving one or more of these problems.
There are already at least three companies in this space: RoomieMatch, Roomi, and Roomster. I wonder why nobody I know uses them, but dating apps are very popular?
It seems to me that the triangulation, trust, and transfer problems in roommate matching that go beyond what OKCupid has to deal with:
There are more than two people involved, and the difficulty of finding communal compatibility complexifies geometrically with the number of roommates.
By the same token, people moving in and out happens more frequently with larger numbers of room mates, often with short notice, making it hard to keep a stable equilibrium of preferences.
Imagine if it was easy to “date your future housemates,” perhaps by living together for a month. It’s already emotionally painful for people to deal with or inflict rejection in one-on-one dating. Imagine being the “odd man out” in this situation. That sounds like a recipe for really uncomfortable social dynamics.
People who rent because they can’t afford their own place probably can’t afford a high-touch service. People who have more money could buy their own place and interview enough room mates to make sure everyone is a good fit with them personally.
Land lords often influence or even entirely control the process of finding new room mates. There are also laws around evictions that make it very difficult to kick somebody out if its not working for others, whereas there are no legal barriers to breaking up with someone you’re dating if there’s no marriage and no kids.
There’s a much higher effort and commitment barrier required to move than to go on a date.
This is speculative, but OKCupid’s success may stem from capitalizing on a cultural institution that makes romantic love feel of vast importance. By contrast, finding an ideal group of room mates doesn’t have the same cultural importance: we still dream of having our own place by ourselves or with our own biological family. To have comparable success, such a service would need to create a new dream. Even if that’s your dream, is it the dream of your housemates?
Similarly, the service OKCupid provides may be less in matching people with compatible characteristics, and more in identifying an abundance of single people and getting them hyped to go on a date. The purpose of the “matching” is to trick you into building up anticipation, not to ensure a really good fit (after all, if it did that too well, people wouldn’t come back for more!). Instinct, hormones, and love do most of the work of making people stick together in the end.
When people do try and start intentional group houses, they’re often organized around a shared social movement, which already have word-of-mouth and social media channels where people can learn about these opportunities for free.
I think a company would do better to work on solving one or more of these problems.
Crossposted from the LW forum