Same experience, right down to what the subscription actually unlocks.
The gap between good and bad platforms here is what the free ceiling looks like in practice.
Gave the platform a fair run over 5 weeks and kept coming back to what you lose by never upgrading.
If you can only manage a few evenings a week, what you lose by never upgrading matters more than raw volume on the site.
Where it stands or falls is whether the free version is a demo or a product.
Filling the profile out properly changed that one more than switching platforms did, and it reframed what you lose by never upgrading.
That is my read on free dating web platform anyway, others will have had different luck.