Or are they actually worthy signing up to for a bit?

So I've done the whole online dating thing off and on a bit over the past few months, generally using free sites like PoF or OKCupid (had a brief look at Tinder and came to the conclusion that it's for folks with above average looks to hook up so for me fun as a "hot or not" style game but practically useless). Met a couple of people, one when I was on the verge of giving up on the concept who was a really nice person, never went anywhere but made me think that it was worth persevering with.

Anyway to try and avoid "woe is me" style moaning let's just say I'm having very little success with it in the last month, a few replies here and there, no actual dates, that's the way things go sometimes. I've always been put off by the sites that charge, usually because of the way they do that thing where it's free to "sign up" and then they go "look at all these wonderful people you can't message. That's the problem with it for me though. If you do sign up, surely the vast majority of these people are also ones who've just signed up and can't message you back when you get in touch with them? Plus I've an inkling that the people who have signed up are probably the same people who have multiple profiles on the free sites, the same people who've already decided "nah, that bloke's not for me."

Then again maybe my cynicism is unfounded. Maybe people are more likely to meet when they know the other person has stumped up some cash and is therefore "serious" about the whole endeavour? Maybe the paid for sites do actually have a reasonably large pool of interesting people to meet?

So, thoughts from those who have tried it, is online dating worth paying for or is it better to stick to the free sites? Any sites that you found better than others and would recommend?