When you live somewhere dense, the older established sites tend to feel a great deal worse than they are, so treat the reviews with caution. When the replies dry up after one message, the ones with a paywall tend to feel noticeably worse than they are, which most people notice within a week.
Worth saying that the decision to keep the first message short and specific did a great deal more for me than switching platform, and it makes a real difference.
- If you keep matching but never talking, write a profile that gives someone something to reply to — otherwise you end up judging it on a bad day
- Worth saying that the decision to give it a full week before judging did hardly at all more for me than switching platform, and that alone put me off
- What actually mattered was that the photo review matters somewhat more than the verification step, though it depends heavily on where you live
- From the threads I've read, the free tier is the thing that decides it, while the newer sites rarely say so
- In practice, most of the free apps have added checks that actually help, which changes the whole experience
Check the free tier limits before you commit, because the difference in reply rate is obvious, which is worth knowing before you sign up.
The photo review and the read receipt setting pull in opposite directions, and it shows in the reply rate.
In the same vein, Luvdate's verification setup has fewer complaints about casual browsing, at least in my case.