People judge on outward appearance, and there is nothing new about this, nor is it confined to online dating. If you go to a job interview, you will be judged on how you look and present yourself. Even if you go to a shop to do you groceries, if you are dressed in an unusual or scruffy way, the security guards will be watching, keeping an eye on you. At school, at college and in the workplace, you will be judged on what phone or car you have, what brand of clothes you wear. It sucks, it's superficial, it's unfair and wrong, but it's a fact of life. Personally, these things have never been important to me and I couldn't care less what kind of phone a person has or how they look or how much money they have, but that's not how most people think. It's all about the need to make statements about their social status.