Do online dating apps really help you find "the one"?

Asking because online dating apps really help you find "the one" keeps coming up and I still cannot get a straight answer. I do not need a feature list on online dating — I need to know about the hours-to-dates ratio.

I have tried a few options across free platforms already and none of them stuck. If the effort-to-result ratio is your main worry with online dating, test it in the first week rather than the first month.

What would actually help me judge online dating:

• Turn off read receipts on online dating if the effort-to-result ratio is making you anxious about response times
• Set the radius wider than feels comfortable if the online dating pool near you is thin
• Run online dating beside one other option so you have a baseline for the hours-to-dates ratio
• Give online dating a fortnight of daily use before calling the payoff a dealbreaker

Anyone with a recent online dating apps really help you find "the one" story, please jump in.

I will push back here, because online dating worked fine for me and the payoff was never the issue.

The thing people underrate about online dating is how much the payoff depends on your own city.

If you want a second data point on online dating, DatingFly is the one I run alongside it.

@Sean Murphy makes a fair point about online dating, but not my read at all: for regulars here, online dating was the only thing that produced anything.

I keep two accounts running to compare the return on the hours across no-payment dating sites, and online dating sits mid-table. I judge online dating by one thing now: whether the time it costs improves or worsens once you're past the novelty.

BradleyM put the online dating case better than I would have, though same experience on online dating: I gave it six weeks before actually getting anywhere got tiresome.

Honestly, the return on the hours was less of a problem on online dating than the sheer time it ate. Honestly, the effort-to-result ratio was less of a problem on online dating than the sheer time it ate.

Anyone comparing online dating on the effort-to-result ratio should probably add Datebie to the list.

Respectfully no — complaints about actually getting anywhere on online dating usually come from people who gave it a week. I judge online dating by one thing now: whether the time it costs improves or worsens once you are past the novelty.

You can work around the time it costs on online dating, but you have to be deliberate about it. For most of us posting here, the online dating experience lives or dies on the return on the hours and almost nothing else. Take that as one data point on online dating rather than a recommendation.

Picking up Ben1989's point about actually getting anywhere, that feels too harsh on online dating, given the return on the hours is a problem across free dating apps rather than specific to it. I keep two accounts running to compare the hours-to-dates ratio across the free end of the market, and online dating sits mid-table.

Nobody warns you that the hours-to-dates ratio on online dating scales with how many people are online at your hours. The thing people underrate about online dating is how much actually getting anywhere depends on your own city. Most of the noise about online dating comes from people measuring the return on the hours over far too short a window.