Dating in Matching Markets
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-economists-would-fix-online-dating-1454907660
In the year of 2019 it is very uncommon for to find the person which whom you are looking for a relationship with in person. Many of our interactions with our person of interest happen directly online through social media or some sort of online dating app. This is where matching markets come into place. In the case of online dating the dating app works as the matching market while the matching market while each person is a node and the edges are what connects them to their matches.
Online dating apps such as Tender, Bumble, and eHarmony all collect information about the individual who signs up for the app then from their it is the job off the app to find matches for the person. A specific question that is asked that I found interesting was “ If Netflix can figure out what you might like to watch next, why can’t dating apps become better at whom you might like to meet.” Dating apps much like matching markets begin to learn the individual and see exactly what they value most and if the same people value the same thing and are close in location it will result in them being a match. Problems may occur in matching markets called constricted sets meaning there is an amount of a certain person desired but not enough matches. In economics to solve the problem of a constricted set we would simply raise the price of an item but in the role of online dating an individual may be left without a date. The role of matching markets in dating can be a complicated one and these sights have progressively gotten better with matching as it begins to learn more and more about what each individual values and how much they value it for essentially what a matching market in economics is.