Another plus of meeting up with potential dates is you do get to make conversation. Having a back-and-forth Q&A won't help you get to know someone. You get to learn facts about them, but you won't learn if this person is fun in conversation, if they can keep up with you or you can keep up with them, if you'll see them as an interesting conversation partner or boring, etc. I think at the messaging stage it's about trying to establish friendliness and familiarity, and of course of establishing basic facts about this person (although if that person was a dog, I would most definitely want to meet the dog!), with the goal of setting a meeting time. The face-to-face meeting is where you try to find compatibility. The face-to-face meeting will also let you confirm facts about their profile (bots can't meet in real life, and if a dog was chatting with you I would most definitely want to meet them!).