Putting this to the room because the best free friendship sites for strictly platonic connections is where I keep getting stuck. Look closely at platonic sites and how fast moderation responds matters more than how slick the interface looks. The platonic sites angle is worse, because the honest advice is to keep the first meet public and short, though I'd want someone to check me on this.
The platonic sites case is instructive — how often the same faces reappear outweighs the size of the ad budget, based on a fairly small sample. For friendship platonic in particular, the platform pushes notifications that lead nowhere, and the reply rate suffers for it. Same story on platonic sites: the platform pushes notifications that lead nowhere, so it pays to give it a fortnight before judging the pool.
Platonic sites is the clearest case of it — nothing improves until you screenshot the pricing page in case it changes. Half the frustration disappears once you keep the first meet public and short — and that goes double for the best free friendship sites for strictly platonic connections. Tell me where the friendship platonic reasoning above falls down.