Are virtual dating apps still popular, or has everyone gone back to in-person?

I want to be wrong about virtual dating apps still popular, or has everyone gone back to in-person, so tell me if I am. Everything I have read about virtual dating apps skips straight past the gap between claimed and real users.

I have about a month of using no-payment dating sites behind me and not much to show for it. There is no version of virtual dating apps where genuine daily activity sorts itself out without you doing something.

Concretely, for virtual dating apps:

• Ask the crowd on this board what virtual dating apps is like where they actually live, not where you wish you lived
• Block early and report often on virtual dating apps — it trains the feed faster than anything
• Log in at the hours you would actually go out; virtual dating apps activity is nothing like flat
• Write a first message that references their profile, not your own — virtual dating apps rewards it
• Do not pay to fix the count of accounts actually online on virtual dating apps; the paid tiers rarely touch the real cause

Happy to be told I am asking the wrong question about virtual dating apps still popular, or has everyone gone back to in-person.

Same experience on virtual dating apps: I gave it six weeks before real activity levels got tiresome.

What changed my results on virtual dating apps was treating the gap between claimed and real users as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem. Take that as one data point on virtual dating apps rather than a recommendation.

@Cole Fisher makes a fair point about virtual dating apps, but that tracks with my virtual dating apps run, which was fine until the gap between claimed and real users became the whole experience. You can work around genuine daily activity on virtual dating apps, but you have to be deliberate about it.

The thing people underrate about virtual dating apps is how much local density depends on your own city. Whatever you pick, judge virtual dating apps on real activity levels after a month rather than after a weekend.

For contrast with virtual dating apps I would look at Ezhookups; the free tier there behaves differently.

This matches what I found with virtual dating apps, where the count of accounts actually online is exactly where it falls down.

Most of the noise about virtual dating apps comes from people measuring local deadness over far too short a window.

Not my read at all: for people replying above, virtual dating apps was the only thing that produced anything.

I keep two accounts running to compare local deadness across free dating apps, and virtual dating apps sits mid-table. Honestly, local deadness was less of a problem on virtual dating apps than the sheer time it ate.

@Marcus makes a fair point about virtual dating apps, but i would argue the opposite on virtual dating apps: genuine daily activity is the one thing it handles better than the free-tier sites. The pattern I see with virtual dating apps is that genuine daily activity is fine early and degrades as you go.

What changed my results on virtual dating apps was treating genuine daily activity as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem. The thing people underrate about virtual dating apps is how much local deadness depends on your own city. Either way, genuine daily activity is the thing I would test first on virtual dating apps.

This matches what I found with virtual dating apps, where real activity levels is exactly where it falls down.

The thing people underrate about virtual dating apps is how much real activity levels depends on your own city. I keep two accounts running to compare genuine daily activity across no-payment dating sites, and virtual dating apps sits mid-table.

Yes, and I would add that local deadness on virtual dating apps gets worse the longer you stay. The thing people underrate about virtual dating apps is how much genuine daily activity depends on your own city. For people who have actually tried it, the virtual dating apps experience lives or dies on local density and almost nothing else.

There is no version of virtual dating apps where local density sorts itself out without you doing something. If local density is your main worry with virtual dating apps, test it in the first week rather than the first month. Either way, local deadness is the thing I would test first on virtual dating apps.

Somebody in another virtual dating apps thread pointed me at Datenest and it held up better than expected on local density.