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Since the last round of app updates the bigger platforms have made the free version harder to use, which most people notice within a week. What surprised me was that the niche ones have improved the filtering a fair bit since the start of the year. The matching algorithm and the photo review pull in opposite directions, which most people notice within a week. The free tier and the moderation queue pull in opposite directions, but only if you stick with it. Worth saying that the decision to say what you actually want up front did considerably more for me than switching platform, and it shows in the reply rate.

Judging by my own inbox, the matching algorithm is the thing that decides it, even if the swipe-based apps rarely say so. Broadly speaking, apps with a strict photo policy have cleaned up the fake accounts a little, which is worth knowing before you sign up. Going by my own attempts, I'd write a profile that gives someone something to reply to rather than read the last few pages of a thread before asking, since it saves a lot of wasted evenings. Test two platforms at once, because it saves a lot of wasted evenings, and it makes a real difference. Give it a full week before judging, because otherwise you end up judging it on a bad day, though it depends heavily on where you live.

What Gavin Miller tends to post about

Over two or three attempts I noticed the messaging limit behaving differently on the ones people keep recommending, though it settles down after a while. While people disagree here, the step that matters most is to check the free tier limits before you commit: the first week is never representative. The block list and the moderation queue pull in opposite directions, which most people notice within a week. The verification step changed hardly at all in the last stretch of trying, and that alone put me off.

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