Online Dating Failed. Why?

Thanks to the ironclad memory of YouTube, anyone can watch a commercial that aired in 2006 for the online dating service eHarmony. The website was a sensation in the mid-2000s and one of the first internet dating tools to market itself as a viable marriage maker. Its creator, a Christian theologian and counselor named Neil Clark Warren, appears in the ad, looking and sounding every bit like a pastor cheering on two of his congregants toward wedded bliss.

Twenty years ago, the promise of online dating was that single men and women could skip the overwhelming uncertainty of chance encounters and find someone who was truly compatible. A soulmate could be found, not just looked for. Two decades later, online dating apps are now the norm. But soulmates—and marriages—are not.