I prefer web over app. I tried a site which was said to be free. signup was fine so i started to use the site only to realise to see my matches or start chats i had to pay for a “premium” account or something. that really annoys me and it’s a waste of my time so does anyone know any good dating sites which are actually free, as in i don’t have to pay to use the site for what it should be used for? thx in advance 👍
oh and I’m looking for men, forgot to specify lol
From my understanding (and experience) dating apps/online dating in general is dead, fucked up beyond repair by capitalism, toxic incels, predators, scammers, crooks and most recently AI. No technology can possibly survive such an onslaught and most of them wouldn’t profit from doing so. They have a financial incentive to attract repeat customers.
In person meeting and dating should be the obvious alternative, but apparently nobody goes out socializing anymore since COVID and nobody can afford hobbies because of the economy and chronic social malaise and terminal online doomscrolling has broken people’s ability to form human connection anyway so I think civilization is probably just ending after these last few generations, frankly.
If there is a useful option I’d love to know what it is too.
I think civilization is probably just ending after these last few generations, frankly
Someone’s probably trying to stop that already, in a way. Low(er) sentences for rape and abortion bans. Maybe will be followed by something else, like decreasing age of consent. Or banning things like hysterectomy, salpingectomy, vasectomy.
All the good solutions /sGo to protests. Meet cool people.
Yeah you can’t really talk though.
Meet unemployed people.
I think civilization is probably just ending after these last few generations, frankly.
Probably for the best…
dating apps/online dating in general is dead, fucked up beyond repair by capitalism, toxic incels, predators, scammers, crooks and most recently AI. No technology can possibly survive such an onslaught and most of them wouldn’t profit from doing so. They have a financial incentive to attract repeat customers
Thank you for writing exactly what I was thinking.
I heard that Japan is starting to implement a government sponsored/made matchmaking app. The core advantage is that the intention of the platform is to actually match people and make people have babies. Plus, if someone is being naughty, the penalties can be much higher than a simple account ban.
I think the way you’re supposed to do it now is to post one of the JD Vance memes into c/196 and try DMing the first person who comments. Rinse and repeat until the desired outcome is achieved.
Plentyoffish mostly stinks but still has a free tier where you can message one person a day.
Also, on the page where you look at people who have viewed/liked you, the photos are blurred but if you use the Web Developer Inspection Tool you can see the unblurred photo:
Right click on one of the images of who you want to see and in the dropdown menu click “Inspect”:
The Web Developer tools will pop up and should auto-locate you to the image in question. In Firefox you can just hover over the image location and view a preview of the image. You can also right click on the image location and “Open Link in New Tab” to view it.
From here, you can usually find them in your list of potential matches, in your “meet me” swipes, or in the recently online list. This way, if someone swipes right on you, you can find them without paying and can decide to match or message.
Cheers and good luck!
Alovoa is free and opensource.
Its the only one i know that isn’t out to make money
But you can’t self-host it??? Blaspheme! /s
Just kidding, nice to know there’s something out there.
There’s also Duolicious which is similarly free and without ads but there was literally no one within a hundred miles of me and most of the people using it were about half my age so it felt fruitless to pursue.
EDIT: same with Alovoa… nobody within 100 miles…
I looked into this not too long ago. Got them to share their user profile numbers - 50k - but I’ve a strong feeling that the majority of those are dummy test profiles.
I guess mine was. I wanted to try it out, but I’m not willing to give away that much of my privacy to any website so it was pretty useless. There was literally nothing: fill out a form and I guess there are supposed to be emails of responses. I live in a major metropolitan area and never got any, but I refused to give details so that’s not a surprise.
I just thought there’d be something to see before I committed my privacy
Yeah it’s a known thing that match bought all the dating sites and turned them in to tinder and made the algorithm to not to help you find someone but just keep you on the site. So they just watch your patterns to keep you searching and give you just enough hope so you don’t leave / stop paying.
The question i have is not even about dating but just making IRL friends. Stuff like meet-up is full of scams and professional networking. Where what I’m looking for is a site where I can find people that share my hobbies/interests.
The question i have is not even about dating but just making IRL friends. Stuff like meet-up is full of scams and professional networking. Where what I’m looking for is a site where I can find people that share my hobbies/interests.
I’m struggling with finding this kind of culture home too. I feel like meetup used to have more events in my area—and I’m practically in the the city and near big metro area—but ever since pandemic, I have no clue where to find people. Not that I did before because I’ve been a shut-in for most of my life but hot damn, I feel like eventually I will just finally give up and show up to a board game/card game event even though I’m not good at them. I would love if there was a calligraphy type of group thing in my area but I digress.
They are doing an awful job of it, if that is the case. Most of my last few relationships, serious and casual alike, were from tinder, and those few that weren’t, were surprisingly enough, from jodel. But tinder has been the cultural standard here for a longish while now, and most everyone I know, friends and acquaintances, have met their partners from there. And after passing 30, not many are single anymore, and only very few in casual/serial relationships. So most are in stable committed relationships, of which most were from tinder.
Personally I never spent any money there and I don’t know any that have (though they could just be omitting it or it never just came up, I digress), yet I don’t really know many single people anymore either thanks to it.
So if their intention is keeping people searching, they really make it way too convenient and nice an experience to meet people and fall in love.
Could this maybe be a thing that EU somehow makes better here, versus e.g the US that I can sadly imagine would actually give all the tools for the companies to actively make it an eternal search… it feels to me it’s too good an experience for most I know for our experience to be the outlier. Why would people use it anyway, if it didn’t work?
Jodel? The app used exclusively by my coworkers to post memes about their job, and seemingly not much else?
I like OK Cupid. It works perfectly without paying and matches are better as they are based on questions you answer and profiles contain more info. So it’s less evaluating lifestock like Tinder.
There’s also Bumble, it used to be that the woman needs to start talking when matched within 24h otherwise the match disappears. This is so women won’t get spammed by loads of men. I heard they would change it, but I’m not sure if they actually did. It works fine without paying.
There’s Boo, which I think is mostly for autistic and introvert people. Works fine with the free version.
There’s Feeld, which works great without paying. The focus is mainly on sex, not so much relationship material imo.
