I think many of us have noticed the trend that modern tech just... Doesn't make things better. There's little to be excited about, because anything even remotely innovative is going to be filled with tracking, ads, etc.
Let's say you had a bored software engineer or 2 at your disposal and the goal was to improve something you do often, by creating an application or website that isn't owned and enshittified by a megacorp looking to extract maximum short term value - what would your project be? Is it something you'd be willing to pay for, maybe with a free tier available?
The reason I'm asking is that I'm a software engineer and in the current hard-ass market, while I'm lucky enough to have a stable job, I know that experience alone isn't cutting it anymore in the recruitment process. You need to be able to show side projects too. Plus I have an unemployed software engineer friend who also has no interesting projects to show. So if we make any money out of it, that's awesome. If we don't, it's just something for our github accounts. Probably the latter.
PS: Yes, I know this is not a tech community - I want ideas from regular, non-techy people too.
PPS: This doesn't have to be something in your personal life, it could also be something that would help you at work if you had it.
Dating.
it's unfortunate that all the current solutions are absolute garbage.
Actually helping people turns out to not be so great for shareholder value
Yeah that sucks. No business wants to help its own customers never need it again.
"Cosmo" syndrome
Realign monetary incentives by making users pay for the quality of the match. If you want more of the good, pay for what you rate as good in the previous matches. Pay more the longer you stay together with a match.
The matching system was already almost perfect at OkCupid around ten years ago - copy that, and the well-aligned incentive should keep it developing instead of degrading, which is what Match Group did to it with their monthly subscription that incentivizes preventing long-term relationships.