Do hook-up websites work?

[sexplorer35]

I'm curious ... I hear about websites where supposedly you can meet others for sex. I'm not talking the serious, soulmate finding sites like Match.com, but things like Adult Friend Finder, Ashley Madison, etc. Do these things actually work? I'm sure the m to f ratio is like 15-1 or 20-1, but it seems to me these things make a lot of money for their operators and wouldn't do that much for the customer. Thoughts?

 

[Eilan]

I'm sure the m to f ratio is like 15-1 or 20-1, but it seems to me these things make a lot of money for their operators and wouldn't do that much for the customer.

Bingo!

Four years ago, my husband and I had success with a couple's profile on AFF. We had a standard (free) membership and were looking for men, so we pretty much had our pick of partners. We met three people from AFF, but we found that most of the people who contacted us weren't worth our (my) time. Although we met people off the site, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to others; in fact, our profile has been turned off for a couple of years now.

Single men or married men playing alone probably won't have results with the free membership because the ability to view profiles and contact people is linked to the interest that one's profile generates. Of course, a lot of them won't have results with Silver or Gold memberships, either. There are tons of men competing for the few genuine women (a lot of the female profiles are scammers/fronts for pay sites).

If you're interested, Google "AdultFriendFinder scam" or something similar.

 

[Ardeche]

Sometimes.

I think it's a hit and miss.

A gay friend of mine has had several successful encounters through Craigslist.
A married man I know was successful twice with Ashley Madison (First got pregnant. He's a platonic chat buddy...tells me too much I don't need to know).
And a few female friends have had hook-ups through Plenty of Fish, but I think most of them ended up having some sort of actual relationship with the hook-up.

It works for some, but fails for a lot. I personally think it's because *most* women only need to walk out their front door if they want to hook-up. So they just don't end up using sites like that as much as men (who I imagine have a slightly harder time doing so).

 

[DemonicsAngel]

I'm curious ... I hear about websites where supposedly you can meet others for sex. I'm not talking the serious, soulmate finding sites like Match.com, but things like Adult Friend Finder, Ashley Madison, etc. Do these things actually work? I'm sure the m to f ratio is like 15-1 or 20-1, but it seems to me these things make a lot of money for their operators and wouldn't do that much for the customer. Thoughts?

The problem is not the number of women/men it is if the women/men are real or fake

 

[SweetErika]

The problem is not the number of women/men it is if the women/men are real or fake

I disagree, and think both disproportionate ratios and fakes are problematic. If there are 20 or 50 men for every woman on the site, there's a ton of competition, it's hard for men to get noticed and the women can easily be overwhelmed by the number of responses they receive when they place an ad.

People who aren't genuine--whether they're liars, advertising or scammers--make it difficult to find matches, too, of course. Sites like AFF and even Craigslist have a lot of fakes and flakes, although they're pretty easy to spot most of the time with profiles that look too good to be true, URLs in profiles or messages and inconsistent info or communications that appear to be copied and pasted.

 

[CyberDrive]

all i want is just sex!!!

marco!

 

[DemonicsAngel]

I disagree, and think both disproportionate ratios and fakes are problematic. If there are 20 or 50 men for every woman on the site, there's a ton of competition, it's hard for men to get noticed and the women can easily be overwhelmed by the number of responses they receive when they place an ad.

People who aren't genuine--whether they're liars, advertising or scammers--make it difficult to find matches, too, of course. Sites like AFF and even Craigslist have a lot of fakes and flakes, although they're pretty easy to spot most of the time with profiles that look too good to be true, URLs in profiles or messages and inconsistent info or communications that appear to be copied and pasted.

Ok When you get the dating site software* (to build you dating site) once installed you start with anywhere between 11-100 fake profiles already these are built in to to the software itself, to attract the male's these normaly are 75% female and 25% male fake profiles. You can also if you which dependent on the software you are using raise this number to well over a 1000 members (with some a simple add on pack) which makes your site look like a hit from the start.

Once you site is live because of the number of women a lot of men join this pushes up the number of males to be higher than number of females. It is all a marketing ploy to get members on site and cash in site owners back pocket.

*Software
which can cost anywhere from £50 - £2500 and no most expensive is not always the best one as I found out I found the best software was around the £750-£1000 mark (best not only for the software its self but also the after sales support you got from makers of software).

I have spent some months doing some research into the dating site ownership, software formats and payment methods.

 

[SweetErika]

Ok When you get the dating site software* (to build you dating site) once installed you start with anywhere between 11-100 fake profiles already these are built in to to the software itself, to attract the male's these normaly are 75% female and 25% male fake profiles. You can also if you which dependent on the software you are using raise this number to well over a 1000 members (with some a simple add on pack) which makes your site look like a hit from the start.

Once you site is live because of the number of women a lot of men join this pushes up the number of males to be higher than number of females. It is all a marketing ploy to get members on site and cash in site owners back pocket.

*Software
which can cost anywhere from £50 - £2500 and no most expensive is not always the best one as I found out I found the best software was around the £750-£1000 mark (best not only for the software its self but also the after sales support you got from makers of software).

I have spent some months doing some research into the dating site ownership, software formats and payment methods.

While I understand this, my point is that it is not the only problem, or source of every problem, as you suggested. Men have trouble finding women on sites like Craigslist, OKCupid and CollarMe because there's so much competition. Women can have trouble on those sites because there are so many men that a high percentage of the responses are usually from losers and there can just be an overwhelming number of responses, period, making it very hard to wade through and pick out the higher quality ones.

ALL of those sites I mentioned are 100% FREE, and the owners don't add fake profiles, like the owners of the FriendFinder network and other pay sites have/do. Spammers, scammers and liars post fake profiles on them, but that's different than fakes or bots created by the unscrupulous owner(s)/staff of the site for the purpose of generating interest/business.

On a side note, I'd imagine you'd have to find an untapped/poorly covered niche market if you wanted a shot at having a successful pay dating site. Even then, there are a number of excellent, 100% free sites out there, even for niche markets. There are a lot of people like me who know that most of the pay sites are scams and don't see the point in paying when we can use, and get results on, quality free sites, even if they have advertisements (which many of the pay sites have anyway). With sites like AFF, paying certainly doesn't guarantee, or really even improve the chance of, finding quality people/responses.

Anyway, if you go forward, I hope you have a really good hook because the market appears pretty well saturated and it seems like more and more people are looking for, and finding, the quality free sites! Hopefully you'll run the site with integrity, too; lord knows we don't need more sites that claim they are free when it's only free to give them your info and look at profiles, won't honor their guarantees, put up fake profiles, keep charging people after they cancel, etc.

 

[FFOTS4Life]

I'm curious ... I hear about websites where supposedly you can meet others for sex. I'm not talking the serious, soulmate finding sites like Match.com, but things like Adult Friend Finder, Ashley Madison, etc. Do these things actually work? I'm sure the m to f ratio is like 15-1 or 20-1, but it seems to me these things make a lot of money for their operators and wouldn't do that much for the customer. Thoughts?

I had a friend who had a lot of success if on Plentyoffish...it is generally a dating website but you can set up your profile so that others know you are looking only for someone to have a sexual encounter with. Also if you specify you will only see profiles of others who are also looking for sexual encounters. The big plus about this site is that it is completely free. Check it out you may be suprised.

 

[Eilan]

If there are 20 or 50 men for every woman on the site, there's a ton of competition, it's hard for men to get noticed and the women can easily be overwhelmed by the number of responses they receive when they place an ad.

When my husband and I were actively using our AFF account, I exchanged PM's with a couple of women (we were commenting on things we'd said/observed on the Advice Line/Magazine section of the site) who said they got at least 100 messages a day. And those were the messages that weren't being filtered!

 

[DemonicsAngel]

While I understand this, my point is that it is not the only problem, or source of every problem, as you suggested. Men have trouble finding women on sites like Craigslist, OKCupid and CollarMe because there's so much competition. Women can have trouble on those sites because there are so many men that a high percentage of the responses are usually from losers and there can just be an overwhelming number of responses, period, making it very hard to wade through and pick out the higher quality ones.

ALL of those sites I mentioned are 100% FREE, and the owners don't add fake profiles, like the owners of the FriendFinder network and other pay sites have/do. Spammers, scammers and liars post fake profiles on them, but that's different than fakes or bots created by the unscrupulous owner(s)/staff of the site for the purpose of generating interest/business.

On a side note, I'd imagine you'd have to find an untapped/poorly covered niche market if you wanted a shot at having a successful pay dating site. Even then, there are a number of excellent, 100% free sites out there, even for niche markets. There are a lot of people like me who know that most of the pay sites are scams and don't see the point in paying when we can use, and get results on, quality free sites, even if they have advertisements (which many of the pay sites have anyway). With sites like AFF, paying certainly doesn't guarantee, or really even improve the chance of, finding quality people/responses.

Anyway, if you go forward, I hope you have a really good hook because the market appears pretty well saturated and it seems like more and more people are looking for, and finding, the quality free sites! Hopefully you'll run the site with integrity, too; lord knows we don't need more sites that claim they are free when it's only free to give them your info and look at profiles, won't honor their guarantees, put up fake profiles, keep charging people after they cancel, etc.

I never said that I was making one. ( I am a program junkie and am always looking at different forms of programs and it happens but I got around to looking at dating site software)

The thing if the fake members is that they are there from the start because they come with the software used to build the site. And it is down to the owner to add more to lure people to the site. So the owners make there money.

As for the free sites fair play to them if they can cover the cost of running a Virtual Dedicated Servers or even a dedicated server which are not cheap for the amount of space and bandwidth needed to run some of these bigger site.

Now how these free ones make there money is with most by affiliate programs which get them so much money per click or per member buying something from said site. This is fine because it keeps cost to member down to 0 however they still need to make the site attractive to other potential new members and how this is done is by adding a certain amount of fake members now once your members reach a certain level you can happily remove the fake ones you added and on one is none the wiser.

No dating site be it free or paid WILL ever be free from fake profiles,Spammers,scammers and liars because they can not control who joins and who does not. however with that in mind yes they can remove them form the site once a fake profile,Spammer,scammer and liar has been pointed out to a member of the admin team but by this time another 10 of these fake profiles,Spammers,scammers and liars could have been added or signed up to the site.

 

[coastal-boy]

I met my wife on Lit...wasn't planned...wasn't looking...wasn't even flirting...just happened. Kinda amazing what happens when you are just yourself.

I was a member of a couple dating sites several years ago(6+) because I live in a fairly secluded area...they were not worth it in my opinion. I'd get the typical responses...you seem interesting, tell me more...I would reply and tell them some bits and pieces...cool I think I would like to meet you...tell me more...and the cycle continued. Were they scams? Too many of the same responses from "different" people. And when I say "same responses", I mean exact same one sentance responses. Can you say "cut and paste"? In my opinion, they are designed to make money, not hook people up. Better off hooking up w/ the waitress at the corner coffee shop.

 

[human_male]

You'd be better off looking for a site that advertised "discreet services."

Although, now I've said that I have just gone and signed up to plentyoffish.

 

[the_miss]

Well, I'm on Lavalife from time to time, and have had success. They have an Intimate section, which is pureply for sexual hook ups. Doesn't aways pan out, but it has. You could always try that.