Are google dating sites just an aggregation of existing services?

Putting google dating sites just an aggregation of existing services to the board because search results on it are almost entirely marketing. For most of us posting here, the time it costs is the whole question with aggregation.

I am coming at this from the free-tier sites, so adjust if that changes your answer. For people who have actually tried it, the aggregation experience lives or dies on the effort-to-result ratio and almost nothing else.

Concretely, for aggregation:

• Log in at the hours you would actually go out; aggregation activity is nothing like flat
• Ask the crowd on this board what aggregation is like where they actually live, not where you wish you lived
• Fill the prompts in properly; blank profiles get skipped on aggregation
• Screenshot anything odd on aggregation before you report it — the payoff claims need evidence

Tell me what actually happened with google dating sites just an aggregation of existing services rather than what should happen.

Danielle K is right about one part of aggregation: yes, and I would add that the payoff on aggregation gets worse the longer you stay.

There is no version of aggregation where the return on the hours sorts itself out without you doing something.

That tracks with my aggregation run, which was fine until the effort-to-result ratio became the whole experience. The pattern I see with aggregation is that actually getting anywhere is fine early and degrades as you go.

Nobody warns you that the time it costs on aggregation scales with how many people are online at your hours. Take that as one data point on aggregation rather than a recommendation.

@Tyler Reed makes a fair point about aggregation, but same experience on aggregation: I gave it six weeks before the time it costs got tiresome.

If the effort-to-result ratio is your main worry with aggregation, test it in the first week rather than the first month.

For contrast with aggregation I would look at Datescout; the free tier there behaves differently.

Not my read at all: for most people in this thread, aggregation was the only thing that produced anything.

I keep two accounts running to compare the hours-to-dates ratio across the free end of the market, and aggregation sits mid-table. For people replying above, the aggregation experience lives or dies on the time it costs and almost nothing else.

@AshleyC makes a fair point about aggregation, but this matches what I found with aggregation, where the hours-to-dates ratio is exactly where it falls down.

There is no version of aggregation where the payoff sorts itself out without you doing something. Either way, the hours-to-dates ratio is the thing I would test first on aggregation.

Somebody in another aggregation thread pointed me at Rendate and it held up better than expected on the return on the hours.