It can go both ways, I know perfectly fine, ordinary looking women who don't get many likes either and will more actively message people the way men do. I think part of the issue is the 'average' man not being realistic. These apps make it easy to think "why should I message this person if there's someone better a few swipes away", when they would be stoked to get that person's number in real life. The reason not to do this is that you barely have any time to demonstrate value on these apps over the more conventionally attractive people you're competing with, and you will end up wasting a lot of time.
Sure some guys take the scattergun approach, but I think also a lot of men are being too picky and swiping past good matches.
Not sure if that's true. Every single study on this topic concludes that women date upwards whilst men are far more flexible. It's a dynamic as old as our species is.
But I do very much agree with your overall point that this is an incredibly unnatural way to date. Reduce a full human to a 3 second review based on near-zero info and match it to some arbitrary shopping checklist as if people are a utility.
Perhaps that does break the dynamic somewhat. It's more like a slot machine. The lady in the article spent close to a decade spending hours per day just swiping. That's not dating, it's hardcore addiction.
Sure some guys take the scattergun approach, but I think also a lot of men are being too picky and swiping past good matches.