If you thought that the accountant who handles the financial affairs of a tech business had in their hands the power to shape the destiny of that business, clearly then you don’t know just how much information programmers have in their hands. Like accountants however, programmers generally tend to stick to what they’re primarily qualified for and good at so you never really get an accountant or a programmer running an entire tech business of their own.

Between non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and generally very satisfactory pay packages received by programmers in particular, you’d very rarely witness a programmer sharing company secrets as to how certain online businesses operate.

Fortunately though I’m not a programmer and the programmer who has essentially lifted the veil on the behind-the-scenes on-goings of an online dating platform he used to work for is in the clear since his NDA expired about two years ago already! Of course we won’t name him here, but we’ll most certainly share some of the juicy details he was only glad to discuss.

It’s all about profits

I could perhaps stop right here and everything you might have heard or experienced about how online dating platforms operate their business would make perfect sense. It is indeed all about the money – it’s all about the profits and everything else comes after that.

Paying-customer retention

If the online dating platform in question is a very specific one targeting a specific niche, the aim is to keep the paying-customer on the site for as long as possible. So you’re not likely to find your perfect match and sail off into the sunset within your first week or month of going premium. Rather, a very complex but intelligent set of algorithms is working in the background to make you feel as if your experience on the platform is getting better and better, moving you closer and closer to achieving what you set out to achieve when you first joined the platform.

Global dating sites

For dating sites which have a broader focus by way of the global demographics of users, it’s all about getting that one conversion. These dating sites are only too happy to have you signing on for the premium functionality just once, often using dirty tactics such as lifting some of your pictures off of the internet and creating a semi-complete profile on your behalf. How kind of them…

Then they’ll have bots sending you messages which suggest that there is a lot of interest in you, with the only catch being that you can only message them back once you’ve gone premium with your account. Of course once you go premium the interest dries up and the site operators are happy to have landed you as a conversion, moving swiftly along to the next person looking for love online.

It isn’t all doom and gloom however and amidst all the dirty tactics and deceitful tricks, love does have a chance to make a connection online and between all the bots and clever algorithms to match the marketing tactics are indeed some real people looking to find a connection online.