While the much-ballyhooed Ashley Madison hack should be understood first and foremost as a crime that has put thousands of people in danger, it has also revealed something important about the site’s business model that should occasion no small amount of pity for the men who signed up.

As Annalee Newitz puts it:

Instead of looking at Ashley Madison as a dating site, I think it’s more accurate to call it an anti-community — a hugely popular social site where it’s impossible to be social, because the men can’t talk to each other, most of the women are fake, and the only interaction available is with credit card payments. It is one of the purest representations of dystopia I’ve ever seen.