My experience with dating apps was better than I expected, with one caveat.
The variable nobody controls for with dating apps is your age bracket relative to the local pool.
The part nobody mentions about dating apps is how aggressively it pushed an upgrade prompt.
Careful with dating apps, because moving to an external messaging app early is a common scam setup.
Practical tip for dating apps: treat any request for card details as a reason to leave.
Before you commit to dating apps, set your radius tight first and widen it only if it goes quiet.
One thing I would do differently with dating apps — read the whole profile before writing the first line.
That is where I have landed on gay dating app for free that doesn't limit your, at least for now.
There is a decent thread on Datenest somewhere in the archive if you search.