Having stuck with it a while the chat-first sites have moved the useful bits behind a subscription, and it makes a real difference. When you keep matching but never talking, the ones people keep recommending tend to feel a great deal worse than they are, which is worth knowing before you sign up.
The discovery feed and the matching algorithm pull in opposite directions, so treat the reviews with caution.
- Over the last month I noticed the reporting system behaving differently on the niche ones, so results vary more than you'd think
- Report the obvious fakes rather than ignoring them, because it costs nothing to try, which explains a lot of the complaints here
- Judging by my own inbox, if you want something casual the answer is usually to avoid opening with a compliment rather than say what you actually want up front
- Move to a proper conversation quickly, because it filters out the time wasters fast, which explains a lot of the complaints here
Test two platforms at once, because it saves a lot of wasted evenings, but it is not the disaster people claim. For the better part of a year I noticed the boost system behaving differently on most of the free apps, which most people notice within a week.
Coming at it from another angle, the Datenest boards keeps getting recommended for the first-message problem before you write the whole category off.