It really is an awful pattern. The whole point of these apps were to only show each other if there was mutual interest. That made it safe to swipe on someone. Now they can just pay and see all of the one sided interest.

Also as you say its in Tinder's interest to put everyone who swiped on you into a different queue and throttle the hell out of it. Drip feed matches into the stream of 'no's. As that liked queue gets bigger, your rejections grow and therefore your desperation/ willingness to pay rises. They can literally see who is already a yes and could prioritise those if they were pro-user. They do the opposite.

I've also noticed they will use this queue of people who liked you strategically. If you haven't been on in a while they will release some matches to build that reward expectation back up and then turn it down once you're doing what they want and engaging daily. (I can't prove this but it feels like the best way to get some matches is to wait for their 'we missed you' spam)