Alt.com Sucks -- and NOT in a Good Way
Review about ALT.comIf you're gay and into leather, ALT.com is not for you. In my experience (spanning several years), they actively discriminate against gay guys.
What Sam said in his review is 100% correct. If you use their chat system (when it actually works), and head for the guy-for-guy room, you're inundated by 50+ year old often married drag queens. They're not even good drag queens. In fact, most wouldn't pass for men let alone women.
And if you're looking to knock boots with other men, forget it (unless you're looking for confused heterosexual males in high heels). I'm sorry, I just don't find a 63 year old guy in women's clothing attractive -- yet this is who they think guys looking for guys are looking for.
Walk into a bar catering to the all-male BDSM lifestyle and you won't see a guy dressed like a girl in any of the pictures on the walls (or in the porn on the TV screens). Yet this is Various' and now Penthouse Media Group's idea of gay BDSM.
They claim they're a BDSM and Alternative Lifestyles Personals site but that is patently false. They have absolutely no understanding whatsoever about the market. They just want to profit from it. Well, the easiest way to profit is to give your market what they want -- something they refuse to do.
I've had similar experiences to Sam. It's either 20 Questions time or you get harangued for not buying into what is a fetish of heterosexuals. The male for male chatroom is a lie. It's more old drag queens for old drag queens. 90% of them have never met and are never going to meet anyone so why be on a personals site other than to gratify yourself with your hand?
It's a waste of time going there. It's absolutely a waste of money buying a membership there.
Pros
Search
Chatrooms
Have met a couple of people
Allegedly caters to straights, bis, gays, lesbians
Cons
Don't live up to their hype (I'd even say they falsely advertise)
Never get rid of a profile
Full of transvestites
Ignorant of market needs
Allow hate speech
Arbitrary abuse handling
Rife with fake profiles
Customer Service reps lie
Senior management lies
Mistreat paying members
Mistreat and discriminate against gay men