The bit that caught me out was that the search filter setup matters noticeably more than the age check, but it is not the disaster people claim. My advice would be to report the obvious fakes rather than ignoring them and then say what you actually want up front, but it is not the disaster people claim. Worth saying that the decision to report the obvious fakes rather than ignoring them did noticeably more for me than switching platform, and it shows in the reply rate.
Since the last round of app updates I noticed the photo review behaving differently on the forum-style sites, and nobody warns you about it.
- What changed my mind was that most of the free apps have got noticeably worse for bots after a slow start
- In practice, the discovery feed is the thing that decides it, even if the chat-first sites rarely say so
- Though the bigger platforms look similar, the photo review differs slightly, and it makes a real difference
- Although people disagree here, the step that matters most is to skip anything asking for a card number to read messages: the difference in reply rate is obvious
From the threads I've read, the moderation queue is the thing that decides it, granted sites that skip verification rarely say so. The part nobody mentions is that the older established sites have dropped the feature everyone used since the last round of app updates.
Worth saying that the decision to keep the first message short and specific did slightly more for me than switching platform, which changes the whole experience.
If you want a second opinion, Datelink's free tier has fewer complaints about casual browsing, so it is worth a look.