>Similarly, people using robotic devices in this way will have poured something rather different into them but the result is still the same;
I agree that a stable family is the ideal but I fail to see how spending your money on sex dolls is worse than getting divorced in your late 20s or early 30s and getting stuck paying for kids for a decade or more. Those people manage just fine.
But the point of the stable family IS the kids.
The point of reproduction is kids, and they can happen without a stable family as well... Quite often in fact. And they can be raised in different arrangements too, like wards of state and in kibbutzim, which is implemented right are not destructive. Or even by single parents (but that one is hard) or by surrogates who have a stable family.
It is telling that this is how you frame "caring for your own children."
We're literally wired to seek social approval, a strategy that has made civilizations work as well as they have.
For kids with rich parents, dating was always easy. And for those in an unlucky economic situation, mating success is still out of reach, despite all the apps.
The only thing that's really easier on those apps is fraud, like using photoshopped photos, AI filters, and made up awards.
Surveys of sexual activity, marriage, and child birth all wildly disagree with your supposition.
Also, in the spirit of the article and the comment I was referring to, one could also count marriage as an indicator of low mating success, as it is a commitment which isn't usually part of a Tinder "date".
One thing bears further thought IMO: the author mentions the false sense of achievement in games and its addictive nature as an analogy. The issue there is that, at some point the game addict has to look away from the screen: the game may end online service, fall out of fashion, the addicted gamer may lose their quick reflexes as they age, etc. And once they look away, they'll find that they have nothing; they've poured their efforts into something that has left them with no real status in society.
Similarly, people using robotic devices in this way will have poured something rather different into them but the result is still the same; at some point they'll look away and realize they have none of the status markers of society accorded a long-term committed couple / family. In short, the emptiness eventually hits home at some point in both cases. What will these addicts do then? What will become of them? I suspect nothing good, meaning that such robots aren't a long-term solution to the unfulfilled biological needs of those locked out of the reproductive pool.