No one is being provided any avenues. These services do not work any better if you swipe based on looks.

My point is that none of it matters. The real problem is bigger.

Everyone has their preferences, and any current system that actually respects that and helps people find each other, will inevitably shift to blue-balling its users with people that are never quite what each person is looking for, because actually doing it right means you lose “customers”.

Because of that, different “avenues” for different people to find what they are looking for, don’t exist. For anyone.

No matter what you specifically need, matchmaking companies are incentivised to identify exactly what you are looking for, and then give you anything but that.

If things actually worked, it wouldn’t matter that the services has pictures. If you don’t care about that part, just swipe accordingly. As long as the people queued up for you are genuinely random (they aren’t) you will find someone you like, and someone who likes you will find you.

Except that these systems explicitly do the opposite. You will be shown every person the system can find who is your type, as long as you aren’t their type.

Meanwhile your profile will be shown to everyone who’d like you, as long as they aren’t the kind you like.

This way, everyone gets the illusion that there’s plenty of fish in the sea. While in reality everyone gets their own algorithmic fence between them and anyone with whom the interest might be mutual.