I do tend to think it’s worth some amount of privacy loss to connect to people. That’s a very individual call though. Personally I’m OK with putting my picture and first name on some apps. It’s a tradeoff - what you give up, you get to see about other people.

The one I’d tried was called HelloTalk, and I intially refused, hard, when it required a real picture and some other info. Later decided to go for it. It’s weirdly set up almost sorta kinda like a dating app, making you show what you look like, share interests, and even seeming to more often show people of opposite gender. The rules say not to use it for that, though, and the interactions I had there never got weird. Also, the apps nags constantly about subscribing to premium, and throws tons of junk notifications. That said, it did do a good job of showing me lots of seemingly interesting people. Not everyone responds, but a few I had really fun conversations with.

Language exchange as a concept can be a little hit or miss. There’s always the questions of ‘which language to talk in’, ‘how often to switch’. If you aren’t careful, it will push to one language or other and you’ll rarely get practice.

Most value I got out of it I think was just connections, more than language practice. Not strong connections, because I keep people a little distant, but casual acquaintances where I could ask this or that about the languages I’d want to speak or the places I planned to visit. Also got some good music and food recommendations.