If a guy can cold approach girls on the street and regularly have his choice with 8's and 9's, does that make him better, worse, or the same than another guy who uses OLD and has his choice with 8's and 9's? Why would one be any better or worse than the other? The outcome is the same.
The goal isn't the method. The goal is achieving satisfaction, abundance, and choice with the women you find the most attractive, right? Why would the way in which you achieve that matter? Social circle, cold approach, OLD, **** dungeons..... whatever.
Having said that, for 97% of guys, OLD is a recipe for disaster. Whether they consciously see it or not, or whether they are willing to admit it or not, most guys see OLD as an "easy" way to bypass the hard work required to improve themselves to become a real man... the kind of man that has his choice with women. But instead, what actually happens is that they fail in OLD worse than they failed in real life, and then they become upset about it and look for something external to blame, when in fact the problem always was, and still is internal. If you are thirsty, uncalibrated, haven't worked hard on your confidence, appearance, attitude, and social skills, you'll fail no matter which mechanism you use to meet women. In cold approach, you must have the confidence and unshakable belief in yourself that no girl rejecting you can hurt you. In online dating, you must have even thicker skin, because by the numbers, the attractiveness of women you are likely to match with will be far lower than in good real-life cold approaches. If you haven't developed yourself, you will begin to think the best you can get are 4's because that's all you match with on OLD. And even 70% of those 4's may flake on you if your game isn't tight. To Amante's point, you may find that diamond in the rough, but unless you are totally secure, can withstand months of sh*t-matches and flakes to get there, and you have abundance through other means, it simply isn't worth it and it will only cut you down.
I'm personally not a big fan of OLD, but if it works for some people, more power to them.