There are various levels of features on most of the online dating sites and accordingly there are different levels of membership costs.
Most of the free online dating sites will offer a free membership and this will allow you to browse the profiles and see the types of people who are searching for friendship.
The bigger free dating sites can have thousands of people dating in their databases and to manually look through all the profiles would take weeks.
Depending on which dating site you are on, some of them offer limited searching abilities for their free online dating memberships while others won't allow you to search until you are a member.
You will soon see that the variety of people who have their profiles on these sites are considerable and it is highly likely that there will be someone there you would like to contact and interact with further.
This is one of the reasons these internet dating sites allow you to get a free membership.
They know that for most people there will be enough interest for them to sign up and become a paid member so they can take advantage of all the other features of their site.
These big sites will offer dating tips and advice and also safe dating practices as there are always some people who you will need to be careful interacting with on these sites just as you would need to be careful of the people you meet at the local bar.
There are various systems in place at the big dating sites that attempt to reduce or eliminate the problem people and they are always trying to improve their free dating services in all matters.
Some of the online dating sites also arrange holidays and romantic getaways so they are a lot more than just an advertising medium these days.
Unless you have been on one recently then you might not know what you are missing.