This. So much this. Above all else.
Playing the whole game of an online back-and-forth "relationship" before the first meeting is annoying and exhausting. Honestly, it feels like a complete waste of time as well.
There will be a yay/nay decision made by at least one party, within the first FIVE MINUTES of that first in-person meeting, that will render EVERYTHING previously exchanged online to be completely irrelevant. Better to just get to that point as quickly as possible, and not kid ourselves about it.
Pay the fee, exchange 5 minutes with 24 assorted people of your same age. Next!
From what I gather, dating sites are dealing with the reality that women tend to want relationships before sex and men tend to want sex. Women also face various safety concerns when going out to meet people in person that they only know via internet.
If you want a meet-and-greet site, those are some of the issues that would need to be addressed to make it fly.
The next steps can be to assess the other person's appearance, style, etc. It's kind of like Tinder inverted where analysis comes before photo.
Users of this site aren't forbidden from exchanging contact info and swapping photos / video chat. That scenario seems far fetched.
Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or “virtual” phony “relationships.”
Perhaps a more palatable way to approach this is to legitimately screen/curate each applicant and rate them honestly so that there’s less disappointment on blind matching. Also, you don’t what a Philip DeFranco moment of moving to NYC for a would-be significant other that is actually a 16-year-old con artist in Idaho.