Data and Dating 2: OKCupid Paid Services: A-List

OKCupid makes money in 3 ways (that I've seen so far).

1. Advertising
2. A-List: a set of site features only available to paying users (removes ads)
3. Boosts: 15 minutes of being presented to a larger than normal set of users

I don't care much about advertising. I don't use an ad blocker, although doing so might keep Flash Player from crashing so much and having so many memory leaks. But a site that provides me a service free of charge, should be able to make money off of me in a different way. What they provide to me costs them money; if they can't make money, why would they provide the service?  That said, in the case of OKCupid, I recommend that women turn on A-List.

 

I'll cover Boosts in the next post, because there's more data to look at and the A-List benefits are long.

A-List

Invisible Browsing

IMO, the most valuable feature of A-List is invisible browsing. Without A-List, if you go to someone's profile, it displays a popup to them for a few seconds and puts you in their visitor list. Let's say that you go to someone's profile and you decide that you don't want to talk to them; they have a notification that you were there and may follow up on that. This is what I initially got A-List for and having it meant that I could go to guys' profiles and spend some time looking through their answers without letting them know that I did. This helped in the CreepDar creation and testing, especially when I went to that missing stair's profile and caught him on the ethics section.

 

But the real value comes in elsewhere and I knew that this would happen. I cancelled A-List because I couldn't pay the bill on the day that it was due. I went without it for about 2 weeks while I caught up. During that time, I got a message from a guy who looked like a decent match, so I looked through his profile and his questions. He got dinged on every potential stalker/abuser question that he answered, which was 3 or 4. Everything else looked fine. However, since I looked without A-List, he got a notification that I viewed his profile; I immediately got a popup that he viewed mine, so I think he followed the popup that he got.

 

I didn't respond to his message, which had said that he read my profile and I'm hilarious and-- I admit that's actually what showed up in the email notification. I didn't read the rest of the message because I have him a pass after reviewing his questions. Several days later, I got another message from the guy asking if he'd set off my CreepDar.

 

Hey dude, if you think that someone probably thinks you're creepy, don't message them to follow up on that. That's creepy. If you'd been on the borderline, that would have been what pushed you over. Not answering is an answer, especially if you know that someone saw that you messaged. Ick.

 

I'm so happy to have invisible browsing back.

 

Increased Inbox Size

There's a feature (available without A-List) to filter out messages from people that aren't a n% match or higher, with the default set to 70. Women, you'll probably want to turn that filter on. You may or may not want to set the "seeking" filter so that you only see messages from guys in your area, looking for women your age, and who are single. I'm a fat lady with a huge rack and a brain the size of a planet, living in a major tourist destination that also has a sizable population of socially unfit dudes. And I don't mean socially awkward dudes; they're cute. I mean dudes who have been reading too many PUA articles and have set up profiles talking about how they're alpha and know how to treat a lady, but answer the "No means no" question "Never, they all want me. They just don't know it." *barf*

 

Because of the way that I answered my questions, if someone is being honest and is looking for sex while they are in town, they will probably fall below 70%. Barfalpha? Way under 70%. Guys who are just looking for sex are going to mostly fall under 70%. These are all filtered out and retained. The awesome thing about the increased inbox size is that I never have to look at those messages, which is good because these are my inbox stats:
Messages from single men near me that are at least 70% match: 10
Messages filtered out: 72

 

That's 72 dudes who were not a good match who messaged me anyway-- and because my inbox is huge, I don't have to ever make more room. I never have to open the filtered messages. I did anyway; here's some samples:

• "Hi, may I ask about your calves?"
• "We would make cute babies." (My questions say that I don't want to make babies and would prefer to adopt.)
• And approximately 50 messages saying that I have a nice smile, even though I'm barely smiling in my profile pic.

I didn't open them to find out what the rest of the messages were. They were probably form letters.

 

Another good thing about increased inbox size: it doesn't get turned off if you turn off A-List, so you never have to venture into the unwashed masses. This might save you from some of these.

 

Who Likes You?

I ask out most guys that I date. Yes, it is putting yourself out there and making yourself a little bit vulnerable. The person that you like might insult you or not respond or something else that's not ideal for you. It's inevitable that if you ask people out, you will sometimes fail and that can hurt. It's even harsher for women who ask men out, because it's going against the gender mold, which could be disturbing to the guy even if he would otherwise like you.

Thankfully, with A-List, you can look through your list of people who like you and check for ones that you like, then ask them out. It's much less risky, much less stressful, and much less time consuming. Unless, like me, you find one guy that you like in your likes list and wonder why all of those people with 3% match, 50% enemy like you. (I know, OKCupid did the research and discovered that most people don't even read the profiles; they go by profile pic alone.) 

Special Match Search Options

If you go to the "browse matches" page or use the profile search, there's a form at the top of the page to let you filter matches. A-List will allow you to filter by people who answered a specific question with the answers that you approve. That probably doesn't make much sense, but here's an example: I won't date a guy who doesn't know what no means. I can click the "advanced" select box, pick "question answer," enter "no means no," click "no means no," and then pick the answer to that question that I want, which is "Always period."

 

I can do the same thing with "can overweight people still be sexy?" and filter out anyone who says no. Because really, if someone can't stand that I'm fat, there's no reason for me to ask him out.

 

Total of People Who Saw Your Profile in the Last 24 Hours

This is not a documented addition from A-List but it turned off when I lost A-List, so that's what it must be. In the right nav, there a box that contains the profile picture from your account and the "Boost" button. If you have A-List, it also displays the number of people who have seen your profile. How often you are shown to other users is algorithmic, meaning that the site has some code to figure out how frequently you should be shown, based on things about your account. According to reddit, you get more frequent placement if you update your profile, so you should update it every day for that benefit. I have created a document with a set of things to go into the "The Most Private Thing that I'm Willing to Admit;" if my count is dropping, I rotate that item.

If you have that number of displays count, you can keep track of your average and edit if your count is low. I average 1000+ per day in periods where I've edited every day. In theory, this increase of views would get me better results. I get very few likes from guys that I would date based on their profile, so this probably has a better ROI for people who have fewer security concerns than I do.

Conclusion

For me, A-List is worth it. If nothing else, it offers features that provide me with better personal security, exposing me to fewer creeps. Peace of mind for a month is worth at least the price of dinner out for one in SF. The 6-month plan is priced more like a Mission burrito.

One burrito per month for not having to deal with creepy messages? Sign me up!