I looked at this from a few angles in my own time, so I am fairly confident in the shape of it. The short answer is that whether verification exists at all stays invisible until it bites you.

I stuck with it longer than most people would with a couple of accounts, rather than just skimming a couple of apps. On the numbers, how new accounts are treated in week one accounts for most of the variance I saw. It was measurable quite plainly once I had a few weeks of data. Worth testing yourself on balance, and nothing more than that.

I spent longer on this than I meant to a while back, and stopped assuming the obvious answer was right. Cutting through it, the quality of the profile prompts explains why old recommendations age badly. It was noticeable without exception regardless of how active I was.

If I were starting again, I would look at:

  • Whether the free tier caps daily messages — this is where the free tiers diverge.
  • Look at how the app treats people who travel — surprisingly hard to find out in advance.
  • Look at how consistent match quality is week to week — the difference between options is large here.
  • Whether you can delete your account without contacting support — it matters more after the first month.
  • Whether you can finish a conversation without hitting a paywall — it matters more after the first month.

I looked at what changed since last year while comparing them, which took the guesswork out of it. Cutting through it, whether photos are checked before publication matters far more in smaller places.