You used to hear about the occasional successful marriage come from Craigslist too.

Those are a little different than dating apps though. For one, because you have to buy the ad, there's a trail to track down bad actors should you choose to pursue it. Secondly, the newspaper risks it's own reputation if it knowingly published false information, so it can't as easily "create" ads to fill blank space or drive revenue in some way. They also can't publish statistical narratives without having to provide hard data fucking proving it like dating apps have already been busted doing multiple times. Multiple. Thirdly, there's no algorithm involved behind the scenes manipulating things specifically in order to maximize profits in the newspaper. We were all seeing the same thing at the same time. Last thing I'll mention is that back in the newspaper days you generally met up somewhere like the local greasy spoon or coffee shop and you either hit it off or you didnt. You weren't trying to flirt over text or pass highly curated pictures back and forth that kind of warps your perception. You think you're getting to know someone, but you're not. We all edit our lives now for the online world because of the scorn we get if we don't.

Man, those were the days, weren't they?