Dating apps are hyper efficient for a small percentage of men. It's possible that you are part of that small percentage.
For many men (and not even the top tier men), there is an illusion of efficiency in apps. It's easy to believe in this efficiency in using tech-based date arranging methods. Many men are sitting at home in their underwear/comfortable clothing and doing the swiping/messaging. Doing this starts to look really good if you do something like go to the mall, 1-2 grocery stores, or outdoors for 1-3 hours and don't arrange any dates.
There is an appeal in the idea of sitting at home and arranging dates. This trend emerged in the 2010s prior to the pandemic but pandemic lockdowns bolstered this. 1980s-1990s born people have been more tech dependent and not that excited about doing real world things.
You were speaking about effort, not efficiency. And yes, there is an illusion of efficiency. "Look, I'm going to take a dump anyway, might as well use that time efficiently by checking profiles on Tinder." No mention here of whose profiles you are perusing, since everybody pretends to be something they're not, plus most of the women aren't the people you'd really want to date.
The time people spend swiping and posting on social media could be spent way more efficiently, but that would require actual effort.
As to a reward for all that swiping, most men experience a cheap dopamine rush equal to reaching a new level in a computer game, so, hey, there's your 'reward'.
On this forum, the main goal shouldn't be to encourage guys to use dating apps. The reason the 'dating marketplace' is in such a bad state is because low-effort 'efficiency' seekers ended up massively embracing the dating apps to the detriment of learning how to interact with women. This forum aims to help men with dating and interacting with women. Not how to 'beat the algorithm' and 'game the app' into finding dates. Threads like these should move to Reddit.
Fcuk dating apps. Go out and talk with people. Learn how to be really social, not the social of 'social media'.
Have to read through everything, but couldn't wait to respond to this convo.
The effort he might mean is: you THINK you will just sit at home and swipe and that's it. But then...you get almost no likes. You don't wanna "power" swipe so you swipe like a good boy to not upset The Algorithm God. That hb8? Nah,left, she would never want me...* MATCH MISSED*. what? You just swiped left on your future ex wife..
So you pay..maybe those other 3 matches are equally high quality. You pay ,see who matched you and guess what? A 65 y.o bald woman and a tranny liked you.
So you "investigate " what you do wrong. You land a youtuber who will tell you the following while filling up a wipeboard:
you should put in EFFORT.
You gotta be "that guy" . So you
hit the gym.
Buy new clothes.
Rent a car
Take a trip to a place you'd never go
Do something crazy like bunny jumping.
Step in the ring at 36 for the first time
(The best) hire a professional photographer who will make 1000 pictures so you can pick 2 good ones( fresh and fraud advice)
Effort effort effort. Because you see, dating guru will tell you that you can't join the conversation unless you've put I'm ALL this effort.
That's a side effect of OLD nobody talks about. Its like a party ,you have to pay for the ticket ( subscription) ,but to be a looker at the party will take MANY thousands of bucks.. it starts as swiping conveniently at home but escalates to a mission that costs you thousands and thousands of euros.