What changed my mind was that the profile prompt matters meaningfully more than the free tier, so treat the reviews with caution. Use a recent photo with your face clear, because the difference in reply rate is obvious, and it makes a real difference.
Use a recent photo with your face clear, because it stops you blaming the app for the profile, but it is not the disaster people claim. What actually mattered was that the verification step matters considerably more than the reporting system, and it shows in the reply rate.
The bit that caught me out was that the matching algorithm matters considerably more than the block list, and nobody warns you about it. Since the last round of app updates I noticed the read receipt setting behaving differently on the bigger platforms, and it shows in the reply rate.