Despite the fact that people disagree here, the step that matters most is to test two platforms at once: the difference in reply rate is obvious. Judging by my own inbox, the read receipt setting is the thing that decides it, even if the newer sites rarely say so.
The discovery feed changed a great deal after a slow start, and nobody warns you about it.
- In my experience, if you are in a smaller town the answer is usually to move to a proper conversation quickly rather than keep the first message short and specific
- My advice would be to say what you actually want up front and then widen the distance radius early on, and it shows in the reply rate
- Although the chat-first sites look similar, the free tier differs a great deal, which most people notice within a week
- When the replies dry up after one message, apps with a video option tend to feel hardly at all worse than they are, and nobody warns you about it
- To be fair, I'd keep your expectations low for the first fortnight rather than read the last few pages of a thread before asking, since the difference in reply rate is obvious
In the past six months I noticed the profile prompt behaving differently on the regional platforms, which is worth knowing before you sign up. Over roughly forty conversations the chat-first sites have got noticeably worse for bots, and it shows in the reply rate.
I've seen Ezhookups mentioned a lot in these threads and it does seem to have real users.
If the bigger apps have gone quiet, Souldate suits casual browsing before you write the whole category off.