Something that feels to me like it’s present in the future and missing in today’s world: OkCupid for friendship.
Think about it. The internet is a thing. Billions and billions of people have cheap and instant access to it. So then, logistics are rarely an obstacle for chatting with people.
The actual obstacle in today’s world is matchmaking. How do you find the people to chat with? And similarly, how do you communicate that there is a strong match so that each party is thinking “oh wow this person seems cool, I’d love to chat with them” instead of “this is a random person and I am not optimistic that I’d have a good time talking to them”.
This doesn’t really feel like such a huge problem though. I mean, assume for a second that you were able to force everyone in the world to spend an hour filling out some sort of OkCupid-like profile, but for friendship and conversation rather than romantic relationships. From there, it seems doable enough to figure out whatever matchmaking algorithm.
I think the issue is moreso getting people to fill out the survey in the first place. There’s a chicken-egg problem. Why spend the time filling out the survey when there’s few other people on the platform. At such an early stage, you don’t actually expect to be matched with someone for whom you’re compatible with.
It’s definitely a tricky problem. But at the same time, if you “live in the future”, do you see this service? I do.
I mean, maybe society is just not functional enough to get it going. That’s plausible. But to me, it feels like something where there’s just too much demand for it to never emerge. Friendship and conversation are things that are so fundamental, and I think such a platform would do a notably better job at providing each of those things the haphazard, “organic” approach that happens by necessity in today’s world. I could even see access to this sort of platform considered a basic human right, given how important meaningful social interaction is.
Many people seem to be more motivated to invest energy into pursuing romantic relationships than friendships. There are few books about making good friends and many books on dating.
How do you find the people to chat with?
Omegle essentially provided an answer to that question that was highly used. It didn’t do a lot of matchmaking but it might be a starting point.
If you want to pursue this as a business, maybe buy the recently shutdown Omegle domain from Leif K-Brooks (who’s a rationalist) and try to switch from chatting to random people to chatting to highly match-made connections.
Many people seem to be more motivated to invest energy into pursuing romantic relationships than friendships. There are few books about making good friends and many books on dating.
Perhaps. But to the extent that people aren’t motivated to invest energy into friendships, I think there is a sort of latent motivation. Friendship and conversation is in fact important, and so in taking this “live in the future” perspective, I think people will eventually realize the importance and start putting effort into it.
Omegle essentially provided an answer to that question that was highly used. It didn’t do a lot of matchmaking but it might be a starting point.
Gotcha. I think the matchmaking part is essential though. It moves the expectation of prospective users from “I’ll be chatting with a random stranger, and it probably won’t be too great” to “I’ll be chatting with someone who the platform thinks I’m super compatible with. Cool!”
If you want to pursue this as a business, maybe buy the recently shutdown Omegle domain from Leif K-Brooks (who’s a rationalist) and try to switch from chatting to random people to chatting to highly match-made connections.
Thanks for the tip. I’m not interested in pursuing it as a business in the forseeable future, but perhaps in the more distant future. If so, I will keep this in mind.
Friendship and conversation is in fact important, and so in taking this “live in the future” perspective, I think people will eventually realize the importance and start putting effort into it.
What do you think will change in the future that people put more effort into friendship than they are doing at present?
I have thought about it too, and I think something like an automated Kickstarter for interest groups is want one would need. It would work like this: You enter your interests into the system (or let it be inferred automatically from your online profiles) and the system generates recommendations for ad-hoc groups to meet in places nearby (or not so nearby if more attributes match). Bonus: Set up a ChatGPT DJ or entertainer to engage people with each other. Best if done as an open protocol where different clients can offer different interactivity or different profile extraction.
This is actually what social media is for, but you don’t have to fill out a questionnaire. You also don’t have to out yourself as being so lonely and without friends that you’re using a special matchmaking service to find new friends, this in itself could be unattractive to new acquaintances.
In How to Get Startup Ideas, Paul Graham provides the following advice:
Something that feels to me like it’s present in the future and missing in today’s world: OkCupid for friendship.
Think about it. The internet is a thing. Billions and billions of people have cheap and instant access to it. So then, logistics are rarely an obstacle for chatting with people.
The actual obstacle in today’s world is matchmaking. How do you find the people to chat with? And similarly, how do you communicate that there is a strong match so that each party is thinking “oh wow this person seems cool, I’d love to chat with them” instead of “this is a random person and I am not optimistic that I’d have a good time talking to them”.
This doesn’t really feel like such a huge problem though. I mean, assume for a second that you were able to force everyone in the world to spend an hour filling out some sort of OkCupid-like profile, but for friendship and conversation rather than romantic relationships. From there, it seems doable enough to figure out whatever matchmaking algorithm.
I think the issue is moreso getting people to fill out the survey in the first place. There’s a chicken-egg problem. Why spend the time filling out the survey when there’s few other people on the platform. At such an early stage, you don’t actually expect to be matched with someone for whom you’re compatible with.
It’s definitely a tricky problem. But at the same time, if you “live in the future”, do you see this service? I do.
I mean, maybe society is just not functional enough to get it going. That’s plausible. But to me, it feels like something where there’s just too much demand for it to never emerge. Friendship and conversation are things that are so fundamental, and I think such a platform would do a notably better job at providing each of those things the haphazard, “organic” approach that happens by necessity in today’s world. I could even see access to this sort of platform considered a basic human right, given how important meaningful social interaction is.
Many people seem to be more motivated to invest energy into pursuing romantic relationships than friendships. There are few books about making good friends and many books on dating.
Omegle essentially provided an answer to that question that was highly used. It didn’t do a lot of matchmaking but it might be a starting point.
If you want to pursue this as a business, maybe buy the recently shutdown Omegle domain from Leif K-Brooks (who’s a rationalist) and try to switch from chatting to random people to chatting to highly match-made connections.
Perhaps. But to the extent that people aren’t motivated to invest energy into friendships, I think there is a sort of latent motivation. Friendship and conversation is in fact important, and so in taking this “live in the future” perspective, I think people will eventually realize the importance and start putting effort into it.
Gotcha. I think the matchmaking part is essential though. It moves the expectation of prospective users from “I’ll be chatting with a random stranger, and it probably won’t be too great” to “I’ll be chatting with someone who the platform thinks I’m super compatible with. Cool!”
Thanks for the tip. I’m not interested in pursuing it as a business in the forseeable future, but perhaps in the more distant future. If so, I will keep this in mind.
What do you think will change in the future that people put more effort into friendship than they are doing at present?
I have thought about it too, and I think something like an automated Kickstarter for interest groups is want one would need. It would work like this: You enter your interests into the system (or let it be inferred automatically from your online profiles) and the system generates recommendations for ad-hoc groups to meet in places nearby (or not so nearby if more attributes match). Bonus: Set up a ChatGPT DJ or entertainer to engage people with each other. Best if done as an open protocol where different clients can offer different interactivity or different profile extraction.
I started some code for the match-making but due to many other obligations it is currently abandoned: https://github.com/GunnarZarncke/okgoto/tree/master/
This is actually what social media is for, but you don’t have to fill out a questionnaire. You also don’t have to out yourself as being so lonely and without friends that you’re using a special matchmaking service to find new friends, this in itself could be unattractive to new acquaintances.
Social media doesn’t do the matchmaking stuff very much though, does it?