Worth saying that the decision to keep the first message short and specific did considerably more for me than switching platform, so treat the reviews with caution. To be fair, the reporting system is the thing that decides it, while the older established sites rarely say so.
From the threads I've read, if you want something casual the answer is usually to report the obvious fakes rather than ignoring them rather than check the free tier limits before you commit.
- In the past six months I noticed the reporting system behaving differently on the forum-style sites, which is worth knowing before you sign up
- The moderation queue changed quite a lot in the last stretch of trying, which explains a lot of the complaints here
- If you are new to this, widen the distance radius early on — the difference in reply rate is obvious
- In my experience, if you are new to this the answer is usually to skip anything asking for a card number to read messages rather than say what you actually want up front
In the time i've been posting here I noticed the reporting system behaving differently on most of the free apps, and nobody warns you about it. When you keep matching but never talking, the swipe-based apps tend to feel slightly worse than they are, but it is not the disaster people claim.
Across a couple of different accounts I noticed the read receipt setting behaving differently on the chat-first sites, so treat the reviews with caution.
If the bigger apps have gone quiet, the Flamedate community does more than most for quieter weeknights.