We suggest that online dating frequently fails to meet user expectations because people,
unlike many commodities available for purchase online, are experience goods: Daters wish
to screen potential romantic partners by experiential attributes (such as sense of humor or
rapport), but online dating Web sites force them to screen by searchable attributes (such as
income or religion). We demonstrate that people spend too much time searching for options
online for too little payoff in offline dates (Study 1), in part because users desire information …