My experience with short-term dating services was better than I expected, with one caveat.
Judging short-term dating services without knowing how many people locally are already on it is close to meaningless.
The move with short-term dating services is to set your radius tight first and widen it only if it goes quiet.
If I had to name one factor in short-term dating services it would be how easy it was to delete the account afterwards.
Before you commit to short-term dating services, assume the first three conversations will go nowhere.
The deciding detail with short-term dating services was whether it worked without installing anything.
The deciding detail with short-term dating services was whether the match volume held up past the first week.
Anyway, that is my read on how to find reliable fwb sites that aren't full.