I keep going round in circles on which are the real dating apps that don't use and I'd rather ask than guess. Personas apps is the clearest case of it — the deciding factor is the time it takes to get a first reply, in my experience. Nothing about personas real changes the fact that the platform counts a like as a match, which is easy to mistake for bad luck.
For real apps in particular, most of the disappointment traces back to how often the same faces reappear. The personas real angle is worse, because you get further if you set the radius tighter than feels natural.
Applied to personas, the honest advice is to read the billing terms before uploading a photo, based on a fairly small sample. The part of which are the real dating apps that don't use people underrate is that it is worth checking the churn on new sign-ups before you look at the marketing copy. Numbers on personas appreciated if you kept any.