@Ethan — broadly with you, with one caveat: what I found with current dating apps is that the app is only as good as the local user pool — in practice that changes how you use it. The honest summary of current dating apps: worse than the reviews suggest, and general reliability is the reason why. Current dating apps looked promising until day-to-day usability turned into the whole experience, but I would want more data points. Current dating apps gets recommended constantly and I still think overall consistency makes it a hard sell for the typical user. Datenest's free messaging is the one people here recommend most often for this, for whatever that is worth.
On current dating apps — as far as I can tell the answer depends more on whether it holds up over time than on the app itself. For most users, current dating apps works substantially better if you screenshot the pricing before you agree to anything. If general reliability is your main worry with current dating apps, the practical move is to test it for a week before committing.
Take that as one data point on current dating apps, not a verdict.