>Humanity managed dating fine before these things were created

Except back then we had stuff like religion, church, village, common communities etc to bind people.

>even managed it in cities where we live in isolating apartments and only know our neighbours by the music leaking through the walls.

Statistics show urbanites to be lonelier than ever, so that take disagrees with you.

>Pubs, clubs, general social events where you can find people whose actual interests you share, these all do fine.

Massively depends on what the social life is like in the city you live in and what age you age. Some cities are better than others and the older you get the worse it is. While dating apps are more of a sure thing because most people are there to date. Meanwhile you can waste time and money in pubs and clubs for years and never meet a partner.

It's similar to job searching, if you're unemployed and need a job, you go straight to linkedin and apply, you don't go to clubs and pubs hoping you meet a founder who has a job for you. The latter might work every now and then if you're sociable and lucky and live in the right place, but it's not a sure thing for everyone all the time. That's why dating apps will never go away just like linkedin will never go away.

Social media and dating apps together have created this isolation. People can demand a completely comfortable illusion of life and enforce this sterility.

> Except back then we had stuff like religion, church, village, common communities etc to bind people.

And in cities, more pubs, clubs, general social events where you can find people whose actual interests you share.

Most of us didn't go from Renaissance village churches to dating apps in one lifetime, let alone one day.

> Statistics show urbanites to be lonelier than ever, so that take disagrees with you.

Most surveys only started about 10 years ago, i.e. after social media and dating apps were already around, and the few longer surveys disagree with each other, but even they only go back to the 80s AFAICT; we've been living in big dense isolating cities for a lot longer than that.

> Massively depends on what the social life is like in the city you live in and what age you age.

So the focus should be on that, then. As in, not a dating app.

> While dating apps are more of a sure thing because most people are there to date.

Everyone I've heard talking about dating apps since Match Group cornered the market, says the only "sure thing" about them is how mediocre they are, at least for straight couples. Women get all the low-effort displays, men get no responses and spiral into low-effort displays.