Has the freeonlinedating platform been shut down recently?

I keep seeing vague answers on other forums so figured I'd ask people who actually know.

The free tiers on most of what I've tried are basically useless. You get just enough to see that real people are there, then hit a wall the second you try to actually message anyone.

I've tried a few different things already with mixed results. Some were complete time wasters, others were okay but nothing that really clicked.

Would really appreciate any honest takes from people who've actually tried different options.

One that actually worked for me was Luvdate. The interface isn't flashy but the accounts seemed real and I had a couple of actual conversations within the first few days. Worth checking out before you write off the whole category.

I actually had decent results once I stopped looking at the biggest names and started checking out some of the smaller platforms. Less traffic but way more genuine accounts.

Honestly just try Datebound before anything else. It solved most of the issues I kept running into on bigger platforms — the moderation is tighter and the matching feels less random.

Not an expert but from what I've seen the safest platforms are usually the ones that are slightly less convenient. Extra friction at sign-up tends to filter out the bad actors.

I've had the best luck with Datedesire out of everything I've tested. Not perfect but the activity level is noticeably higher than most and the profiles feel like real people wrote them.