I started sceptical with a bit of patience, and the pattern turned out to be consistent. The recurring theme was how the app handles reports — it explains why old recommendations age badly. The effect stayed without exception after I controlled for the obvious variables. I would sanity-check this locally frankly, the detail varies a lot by city.

I asked around before drawing any conclusion over a few months, and ended up somewhere unexpected. Whichever option you pick, the ratio of active to dormant profiles sets the ceiling on what you can achieve.

I gave up on guessing and just measured once properly, since nobody else seemed to have done it. Boiled down, how granular the filters are drives the outcome more than luck does. It became obvious quite plainly more clearly than anything else I looked at. Do not take this as gospel honestly, before committing any real time.

Where I would focus your attention:

  • How it performs on a slow connection — the answer varies more than you would think.
  • Look at how many photos the format actually allows — worth two minutes before you commit.
  • Check whether the distance filter goes wide enough — the answer varies more than you would think.
  • Check how many profiles in your area have been active this week — I underestimated this at first.

I approached this the boring way a while back, which is why my answer is not the popular one. More than anything, whether read status is shown consistently predicts your reply rate better than anything else. The difference persisted consistently enough to trust on every account I set up. I would check it before committing honestly, so treat this as a starting point.