Agreed on the whole. How much of it's usable without a card is the bit I would test first.
After a few weeks on chat with singles near the only question left was whether the algorithm is doing anything useful.
Took me about 6 weeks on it to work out that the real question was how much control you get over who sees you.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, whether the sorting can be trusted matters more than raw volume on the platform.
Whatever you land on, test chat with singles near for a week before you judge it.
Different crowd on the Turndate community threads, which suited me better.