eHarmony Blog.com

(I asked Gr8Guyn2008 to elaborate. He gave me permission to share his reply. Here’s his reply.)

Dear eHarmonyBlog:

I could write a book on the apparent shift in philosophy but I don’t have that much energy so I will just toss a few out there for you.

1. eHarmony has always focused on the need to be polite when communicating with your matches. The most recent downgrade took away the concept of sending a reason why you are closing a match and also took away the ability to send a Final Message to a match that had closed you. In my view both telling a match why you are closing them and then sending a Final Message are polite. Conversely in my view of the way that it is now is very much like slamming the door in someones face.

2. eHarmony has always said that if you are not interested in a match you should close them rather than just leaving them hanging. With the recent downgrade, closing a match in your New folder has become a two step process of placing them in your Archive folder, then going to your Archive folder, opening that match again so that you can then scroll to the bottom of their profile and click Close. This means that most people are going to archive a match they are not interested in and never close them, in other words put them on perpetual Hold.

3. eHarmony has always touted their success in long distance relationships. At sometime in the not too distant past eHarmony removed two settings related to distance. One was would you accept matches that were willing to move for a relationship. The other was would you be willing to move for a relationship. I am not sure exactly what this change is telling me about how eHarmony now handles long distance matches but at some point one of the people has to be open to moving.

4. Part of the eHarmony (and all the other paying dating sites) business model is to lure non-paying members into paying for the service by allowing people to have a free profile. eHarmony also has Free Communication weekends. See my response to WonderWoman in this thread

http://advice.eharmony.com/boards/dating-advice/using-eharmony/40659-fcw-weekend.html

on why the changes to the FCW go against the eHarmony business model.

If you have questions on any particular item about the changes at eHarmony or on how the system works just ask. I have a pretty good handle on how eHarmony works and have an opinion on everything and I like to share

Gr8Guyn2008