In the last decade, online dating has become a serious alternative to begin meeting and connecting with people from across the world. There are literally thousands of online dating sites catering to pretty much all the niches, with many of these sites as being paid. The majority of these sites enable users to create a profile and search for free, however, when you contact another member, you are then requested to purchase a membership.
Paid online dating websites have substantial advertising dollars to create awareness of their services whereas free online dating sites have a lot less in advertising budgets and therefore have less resources to advertise their services. Also, because free online dating sites are not charging their users there is little revenue to provide support for the service. Since the introduction of personal dating sites on the internet, websites that were able to launch early into the dating market has well established themselves and have thousands if not millions of users already signed up. These websites that were able to provide services earlier on at the time when the internet was becoming popular were mostly paid and it is not until recently that 100% free online dating sites have come on to the scene. It really has been in the last 8 years or so that there has been an emergence of another type of online dating site or sites where there are no costs associated to using their services. As these types of free online dating sites are relatively new to the paid personal online dating sites, the online dating industry is noticing their arrival. There have been rumbling in the industry that the arrival of free online dating sites would disrupt the current monopoly by several of the larger online dating players, however there are a counter arguments that these free online dating sites would be more prevalent to members misusing the services. Misusing free online dating sites in terms of creating fake profiles, members not being serious because they have not invested or paid any money and therefore will result in less serious memberships. With so many millions of people looking for relationships, there are more than enough people around the world where paid and free online dating sites can co exist.
There are millions of people looking for companionship, romance, new friends, a date or love and the internet has made this possibility even more attainable. It’s almost wondrous how we can meet people that are completely compatible with us, live in the same neighbourhood and never meet. I’ve met several great people that live no more than five minutes away. I still find it remarkable at how powerful the internet and online networking can be, where you meet total strangers only to feel as if you’ve known them for years because of their like mindedness. Having experienced the use of free and paid online dating sites, I’ve actually had more success with free personal dating sites. I didn’t feel the pressure of paying and worrying about my membership expiring and also because of my busy schedule, at times I would go online in a couple of weeks or so to check messages. By the time I would correspond with another member and setup a time to meet it can be a month or more, so paying for a membership for me wasn’t working unless I paid a lot of money for an annual membership.
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