Marginal Revolution: Markets in everything, or markets that will fail?

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Markets in everything, or markets that will fail?

On-line flirting. You bid with real-valued points for the chance to contact members of the opposite sex. You lose points if you bid for women beyond your reach, you can get more points, it seems, by watching more advertisements. But is staged flirting any fun at all? And should a woman be more impressed if you can bid with more points?

Thanks to Jerry Brito for the pointer.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 6, 2007 at 09:01 AM in Economics | Permalink

Comments

I don't understand the reason for a market here...you can easily go out and flirt with anyone...ehitting on people makes sense if you're trying for a relationship and need to check off a long list of compatibility things, but to flirt? You just need another person.

Posted by: yoyo at Apr 6, 2007 2:24:14 PM

I think its an attempt to stop spammers and the like from just contacting everybody.

Posted by: mike at Apr 6, 2007 4:26:59 PM

This book http://www.amazon.com/Game-Penetrating-Secret-Society-Artists/dp/0060554738/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-1658428-1255958?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175893328&sr=8-1
suggests that the market is doomed to failure because it requires men to signal interest, as opposed to signaling disinterest and value.

Posted by: JW at Apr 6, 2007 5:04:44 PM

If you are in search of an invite, if you want to check this out, try the invitation code 'GIGA'.

Posted by: Sameer Parekh at Apr 6, 2007 10:43:22 PM

Well, after signing up, I discovered that there is only one other person on the site in Baltimore. And it's a dude, which doesn't really help me.

And therein lies the problem with making a site like this invitation-only - if you want a site where the goal is to meet new people, especially people physically close to you, and the number of members is limited, the chances of meeting someone is also limited.

Posted by: madanthony at Apr 6, 2007 11:49:55 PM

Obviously you need to invite your friends to join. 6 in Minneapolis so far!

Posted by: Steven at Apr 7, 2007 5:10:40 AM

This market seems backwards to me. If you have watch advertisements to gain points to flirt, it seems that the woman would choose the person who bid the lowest amount of points. He is too busy to gain points or does not care enough to bid any higher. In either case the woman is then striking higher on her scale, while a man bidding a lot of points is reaching too high above his scale and is likely to lose in the long run.

Posted by: Murphy at Apr 12, 2007 10:50:55 AM

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