You are completely right and your friend is setting himself up for disappointment. A paid subscription is an amplifier, not a miracle cure. If your profile has poor lighting, low-quality selfies, and a blank or negative bio, paying for premium will simply show that bad profile to a larger number of people faster. Nobody is going to swipe right on an unappealing profile just because the user paid for a boost. I read a great breakdown on Hily discussing how paid features interact with profile quality. The golden rule is to optimize your profile first before spending a single penny. Get a friend to take three or four candid outdoor photos, write a funny two-sentence bio with a clear conversation starter, and see if your organic matches pick up. Once your profile is proven to work on the free tier, upgrading to premium will pour fuel on the fire and get you amazing results.
A friend of mine has had an empty inbox on dating apps for the past three months. He barely gets one match every two weeks, and conversations usually die immediately. He is convinced that dating apps are rigged against free users and believes that buying the most expensive premium tier will magically fix his problem and flood his account with attractive matches. I told him that buying a subscription will not help if his profile photos are blurry and his bio is empty, but he won't listen. Can a paid plan actually revive a struggling profile? What role does premium play compared to basic profile quality?
