@Sebastian — broadly with you, with one caveat: two things moved the needle on I report a fake profile on a free search dating sites for me: turn off read receipts and see what changes, and patience — nothing else moved the needle as much. I have been running Datenest (free to browse) alongside the mainstream apps and the reply rate held up better than I expected.
- Takes five minutes: fill the profile out properly first and write down what you see
- Message five people and count the replies and compare against a second app
- Turn off read receipts and see what changes with notifications off