I'm going to preface this by saying I understand that some people have success on them, and that's good for them. But after doing endless amounts of research, doing profile reviews on multiple subreddits and following people's advice, revamping my own profile a million times with new pictures and high effort prompts, I ended up with absolutely no luck, and this is a repeating pattern, by this point I've probably tried every single thing possible with the same results. Understand that this isn't just a me problem, I seem to find many people who have the same experience, the answer is that these apps are designed to do exactly that, otherwise they would never be profitable.

For context, I'm 29M, 6'2, decently fit, Middle-Eastern (which might work against me, but I can't change that, and I didn't even get any Middle-Eastern matches despite seeing a ton), educated and employed in a stable career that pays well, have an okay social life and a laundry list of hobbies both indoor and outdoor, aaaaand have managed to net over a 6 month period a total of:

Hinge: 0 likes 1 match, ghosted (had more when I paid but most of them were bots/scammers)

Bumble: 0 likes 3 matches, all bots/scammers

Tinder: 0 likes 0 matches

FB dating: 0 likes 0 matches (idek why I bothered with this, it was mostly an experiment to see if my experience was isolated to the big apps, FB doesn't use an algorithm based approach as far as I know like the big apps do)

I kept track of this because again this was a repeating cycle, and I wanted to find out exactly what I was doing wrong or maybe it was just because I'm straight up unattractive (which these apps will absolutely drive you to that conclusion, even if you are not, they are massively looks-based after all) along with making you feel absolutely worthless.

These apps thrive off of destroying men's self esteem which will inevitably lead them to pay for the subscriptions and they are VERY predatory about it, and I'm guilty of doing exactly that (news flash, it didn't really do much), so do NOT spend money on them and try your best to just rid yourself of them, they are not doing your mental health any good. The reality is that most men get pushed to the bottom of the stack, never to be seen.

I deleted all of the apps a while ago and I've felt infinitely better without them. If your experience sounds the same as mine, do yourself a massive favour and just get rid of them, interact with people in real life (or try your best to, I'm a bit socially awkward but I'm doing my best to get over that hump), it's much easier that way.

Long post I know, but what I want to get at is that there's 8 billion people on this planet, there is somebody out there for every single one of you and me, but chances are you won't meet them on a dating app because they are ultimately designed to keep you lonely and feel terrible about yourself. Do not reduce yourself to a left/right swipe or let alone to never be seen, you're all better than that.

TL;DR: delete the apps and NEVER pay for them, your mental health will thank you.