Is OkCupid tricking You into purchasing an A-List?

If You have ever used OkCupid, then it’s almost a certainty that you have encountered this small pop-up in the bottom right corner informing You that someone liked You and even shows you a blurry picture of the secret admirer. However, I’ve noticed that they are always almost -as far as I can see through the blurred picture- perfect headshots, Which is not that weird giving the nature of the site, but it’s not uncommon for a wide range of profile pictures to be of something else like a full body shot (Yeah I am talking about those mirror selfies with the tongue out) and some other not really even related to a person. If you googled around about the fake likes and such, You’ll find a lot of discussions about the bots on the site that wants Your attention for various reasons and that OkCupid is fighting them to some degree, But what if the site itself was using the same method to entice You. After all, they gotta make money.

The so called “A-List” has some features that in My opinion are worthless. Even the Premium option isn’t really very attractive. no pun intended.

One day I decided to mess around a little and see if I can get more out of this small blurred photo so the next time I got that notification at the bottom of the screen, I inspected the web page and got the link of the blurred photo and it was as such”

A-List Features

https://cdn.okccdn.com/media/img/user/blurred/F/60-22.jpg

The first thing I noticed is the “60-22” part and enumerating it gives You a different blurred images. 60-21, 60-20, 60-23, etc.

The second thing is the big “F” in the link. Could that stand for “Female”? let’s try the big “M” then.

https://cdn.okccdn.com/media/img/user/blurred/M/60-22.jpg

It works. The use of “cdn.okccdn.com/media/img/” is exclusive to images related to the design of the site and throughout My limited time looking at the site, I couldn’t find any user related images using remotely anything close to that location.

One might argue that they use some kind of script to pull the image, resize it, blur it and then store it on that address, but giving the naming of the images, I highly doubt it. It’s really shady.

Conclusion
No doubt that seeing a blurred image of someone that likes You is really enticing. The likes could be legit, but OkCupid uses these “fake” image to make it feel personal. Playing on our emotions, If you see a blank or a place holder of a user profile picture, It might not feel as personal as seeing a blurred image of what looks like a real person image. Even the blur part plays a great trick on the mind, Because the person that likes You is just right there and with a small fee You can finally meet Your soulmate. There is no better way to get You to spend money than playing on Your emotions. After all, OkCupid is in the business to make money.

On another note, What if the site is fully tricking You and the likes aren’t even real? You could be enticed by that secret admirer, purchase A-List, go to see the lucky person, and You see “the likes are yet to come” and after reading the faqs or reaching to CS, You find out that “Sorry it was probably a camgirl bot and OkCupid regularly filter those profiles and remove them from the site, but don’t worry, You are a total catch.